Sandy Shores Woman Arrested Over "ALPR Hit" Files Lawsuits against two agencies.

SANDY SHORES — A Sandy Shores woman is suing the San Andreas State Police and San Andreas Communications after what her attorneys are calling "a fundamental and entirely avoidable misunderstanding of basic dispatch terminology" led to her arrest on charges of destruction of government property and vandalism.

According to radio traffic obtained by Weazel News, County Dispatch alerted responding units that a vehicle matching the plaintiff's description had "hit" multiple Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras over a twenty-minute span. In dispatch parlance, a "hit" refers to a vehicle's plate being read and flagged by the ALPR system — not, as the responding troopers apparently understood it, the vehicle physically striking the cameras.

"She drove past some cameras. That's it. That's the whole crime," said the plaintiff's attorney, speaking outside the courthouse. "Somewhere between the dispatcher's mouth and the trooper's ear, 'hit' turned into 'hit,' if that makes any sense to you. It didn't make sense to us either, and we went to law school."

The plaintiff was rear ended by a state trooper tailgating her which after was taken into custody and charged with destruction of government property and vandalism. She spent the night in county holding before the charges were reviewed and dropped the following morning.

Compounding the matter, legal filings note that the ALPR units in question are not, in fact, government property. Records reviewed by Weazel News indicate the cameras are owned and maintained by a private third-party contractor under lease agreement with the county, meaning the original charge would have been legally unsound even if the alleged vandalism had occurred.

"You can't destroy government property that isn't government property," the attorney said. "It's like arresting someone for littering on a road that doesn't exist yet."

The lawsuit names both the San Andreas State Police and San Andreas Communications as defendants, alleging negligent training, negligence, and wrongful arrest. It seeks damages for lost wages, emotional distress. The lawsuit also alleges poor practices with the San Andreas State Police, for not properly investigating the matter fully.

San Andreas Emergency Management & the San Andreas State Police declined to comment fully on this and also citing pending litigation.