My big questions is why were the suspects faces in the database? Why would a 19 year old, never done anything face be in the facial recognition database?
I'm going to venture to guess that either a) the officer was talking out of his ass to make a quick point or b) someone, somewhere massively scraped every social network they could think of for anyone with ties to the area or the event. That being said, I don't really like the sound of it either, regardless of how true it is.
--pre-submit thought: perhaps it was the older brother? Our background is rather limited but it would not be surprising if he had had prior run-ins with the law. Even a minor offense will get your mugshot in the file.
Funnily enough, if you download your information using Facebook's tools, you get a copy of your facial recognition data too. Presumably US law enforcement has access to that for their own uses.
