ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. (KTVI) – Chris Gatlin spent 17 months in jail for a crime that an artificial intelligence program said he committed, only to be freed after the prosecutor learned there was no real evidence.

A grainy surveillance photo of an assault suspect on St. Louis’ Metrolink led a computer facial recognition program to identify Gatlin.

“That knock that came on the door,” Gatlin said in a phone interview with Nexstar’s KTVI. “It blew me away because I wasn’t expecting it to be the police.”

Gatlin now lives in Indiana.

“It’s really not right,” he said. “To get accused of something you know you didn’t do.”

Attorney Jack Waldron, with the Khazaeli Wyrcsh Law Firm, is suing on Gatlin’s behalf.

“The first image that popped up was of Chris, my client, and they took it. They ran with it, and they said, ‘This is our guy,’ without doing any other investigation,” Waldron said.

Even the assault victim didn’t initially think Gatlin was the right guy. He warned police about his memory during the photo lineup.

“I was in and out of consciousness at the time,” you can hear him telling the officer.

The victim initially picked two different suspects – not Chris Gatlin.

“It’s between these two. I can’t remember,” the victim said to the officer.

KTVI caught up with the assault victim, who asked not to be identified for his safety. The man said he still struggles with balance and memory since the assault and is not a reliable witness.

“I said, ‘I can look at these all day long, but I have no clue. I don’t want to put the wrong person in jail,’” he recounted.

During the photo lineup, an officer suggested he keep looking, telling the victim, “Think about the characteristics of the guy. His complexion.”

The assault victim then circled the picture of Gatlin and signed it.

“It was more like I felt I was being pointed into something,” the victim said. “I didn’t want to put the wrong person in jail, but I mean, I was left behind, too.”

Gatlin remained locked up in the St. Louis County Justice Center for 17 months before the bodycam video surfaced as evidence.

“I just felt hopeless and helpless, because I was in a situation that I knew I couldn’t get myself out of,” Gatlin said.

The St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office declined an on-camera interview, but a spokesman told KTVI that prosecutors did not know about the existence of any bodycam video evidence until many months into the case. When they learned about it, the spokesman said prosecutors requested it from the detective and turned it over to the defense. At that point, everyone knew there was no reliable identification and the case was dismissed.

However, Ron Martin, a 25-year law enforcement veteran and the former assistant police chief for the North County Police Cooperative, asserts that the use of AI in policing is not going away.

“When a failure happens because it will, it’s not 100% how are we going to react when that failure happens?” he said.

Martin had nothing to do with this case and would make no specific judgments about it, but said, in general, that proper training is crucial. That includes knowing what’s an appropriate photo to analyze.

“When your face is not obstructed. When the lighting conditions are right. When the camera and the images and the resolutions are right,” he said.

Martin said photo identification is only one piece.

“You still need the human element: the witnesses, the physical evidence, the trace evidence,” he said. “Ultimately, facial recognition systems, AI, it’s a benefit to our society. It’s more of a benefit than a hindrance.”

According to Martin, seemingly hopeless cases have been solved for victims seeking justice with the help of AI when it’s used correctly.

Authorities have not said whether any additional arrests have been made in the case.