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The Police Data Accessibility Project

236 points by cpascal 6y ago

cpascal 6y ago
There's a project/movement forming to gather police data and make it accessible. They are working on scrapers and filing FOIA requests for the information. They are calling for volunteers and need technical folks like us. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataPolice/wiki/how_to_contribute https://www.reddit.com/r/DataPolice/wiki/how_to_contribute
- kristintynski 6y ago
  yup, this is the same group/movement
linsomniac 6y ago
Someone told me the other day that they had investigated the Minneapolis police blotter, after the reporting that the majority of people arrested were from out of state. That investigation turned up that the blotter didn't agree, and shortly after it was revealed the police issued an apology. Denver made a similar report, but have not made their arrest records public, for some reason...
- mcbutterbunz 6y ago
  Denver is so far from any other major city outside of their state. Do they expect us to believe that there are hordes of people from Colby, Kansas that drove for hours just to riot? Minneapolis is reasonable considering its the epicenter of the current issue and reasonable driving distance from Wisconsin.
  - scaredtobeme 6y ago
    What's so different between Minneapolis and Wisconsin that hordes of Wisconsinites would come to town to do things that Minneapolans would never do? That seems implausible, at least to a know-nothing outsider like me.
    - mcbutterbunz 6y ago
      The only thing I can think of is to show support in the city where Floyd was killed.
      - scaredtobeme 6y ago
        For sure, but why would the Wisconsinites be behaving any differently in terms of violence, looting, etc.? I suppose it could be selection bias. Maybe it takes a higher level of anger to drive a couple hours than to go someplace local, and that's more correlated with violent behavior.
    - LiquidSky 6y ago
      Minneapolis is where the inciting incident, the murder of George Floyd, occurred and thus became the epicenter of the current wave of protests.
- gre 6y ago
  The police issued an apology? How about we fire someone for this. There have to be consequences or the system doesn't work.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    > How about we fire someone for this. There have to be consequences or the system doesn't work. Why do you think people are protesting or rioting? There are a ton of people who feel like their desire to change "the system" is falling on deaf ears. Elections and lawsuits are really the only meaningful power the average person has over those in power. Other than that, it's up to people in power to check others in power via "checks and balances".
    - chepaslaaa 6y ago
      The citizens of the united states of america have a 2nd amendment. I might be naive, but I think most populations around the world would have revolted much earlier if they were armed the way americans are.
      - thephyber 6y ago
        > The citizens of the united states of america have a 2nd amendment. The 2A's only role in US society is to allow some people to buy some small arms some of the time and otherwise doesn't have any place in America until the country falls (at which point all of the laws/amendments are not relevant). It's not like you can use your weapon on a government official and claim under the 2A you were protecting yourself against the government. You still get prosecuted for murder; only jury nullification would save you at that point. > if they were armed the way americans are You forget that our military is the largest in the world with lots of recent experience in {counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and psychological operations}. They also have some of the best tools for identifying where most people are and are capable of shutting off most mass communications within the US if they needed to. In the end, the political polarization is such that those who own lots of guns tend to be the same demographics who revere police/military/order and are currently in the camp that overlooks / detests the protesters, saying their complaints are overblown. I'm pretty sure that's largely due to a sustained PR effort by the post-WW2 Defense Department including sponsorships of sporting events that are more likely to attract those same demographics.
- genghisjahn 6y ago
  Is there a link to this or is the some one that told you, like, totes trustworthy?
  - linsomniac 6y ago
    Yeah, sorry about being vague. Didn't want to expose anyone to potential dox anyone. In retrospect I should have dropped the source and added the reference.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    A number of news organizations (local Fox affiliate, CNN, CBS[1]) verified with the county jail intake database that the first statements of the mayors were inaccurate. Both mayors retracted when contradictory evidence was presented by media. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-officials-say-most-people-who-acted-violently-at-protests-are-not-state-residents/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-officials-say-most-pe...
    - genghisjahn 6y ago
      Awesome! Thank you. I think we're all a little skeptical of things that easily fit the narrative we want to be true(or not). Having a source helps a lot.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  The Minneapolis Mayor said that he later apologized after people looked up public arrest records that showed 80+% were from Minneapolis itself. The Mayor gave some dismissing report that he got it from the police department.
- ericwood 6y ago
  Denver also, as of last year, encrypts its police channels, which makes any sort of outsider oversight impossible.
  - junon 6y ago
    This is a Good Thing. Remember the Boston bomber? I don't have a solution, but making all police communications public in real-time only puts innocent people at risk.
    - semicolon_storm 6y ago
      Removing yet another avenue for police accountability & transparency also puts innocent people at risk.
      - junon 6y ago
        In isolated incidents, perhaps. As a general rule, no. Police officers are not evil and crooked as a general rule - only the paranoid or willfully ignorant believe that.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        Police officers organizations are, as a general rule, very strongly actively supported by police officers, and police officers organizations, as a rule, strongly defend officers involved (demonstrably so, not merely accused) in corrupt and abusive acts, not just in terms of assuring adequate legal and administrative representation, but as far as publicly slandering individuals and organizations calling for the general principal of accountability and advancing specific well-founded complaints. Police officers, therefore, are generally complicit, and actively rather than merely passively so, in perpetuating and advancing the culture of unaccountability that fosters abuse and enables those officers who are direct abusers. Most officers may not be direct abusers but that's not the only way to actively participate in promoting abuse.
        6y ago
- bilekas 6y ago
  Trump turned military on their own citizens after dissidence, instead of trying to calm shit down. Someone told you, not on paper of course but it's not a stretch to believe. Whats easy to believe is the insane underlining racism that exists in the US. Leader of the world ? I think my Grandfather who was a lil racist (innocently enough in my upbringing. Wouldn't shop at a chinese store etc, never would act on it. Never. I imagine he'd turn his grave at the US. The US is probably up there with the most racist country on the planet. That's insane. Might be a close cut though with Russia. All that said, let it sink in, you've a leader who just turned the military on US citizens. The America of the land of the free and brave.. Kinda doesn't apply anymore. Well done America. You destroyed the ideal of what you sold everyone (that works better elsewhere). Been nice knowing you. Enjoy.
  - dmoy 6y ago
    Bringing in the national guard (and sometimes even active duty) during riots is the same thing that happened in 1962, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1980, 1992, 1999, etc etc (probably missed a lot). So to the extent that "you've a leader who just turned the military on US citizens" is true, it's also been true for many decades.
noman-land 6y ago
There was a similar project posted here just earlier today. Show HN: Citizen Police Data Project – Police allegation data made accessible - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374345
chrisco255 6y ago
I'm not sure the goal of this project but collecting criminal arrest information and making it public is not going to help anyone who's been wrongfully arrested, or anyone who's had their charge expunged. I'm fairly sure that storing and exposing this data improperly without respect to subsequent court actions is in violation of the law.
- choward 6y ago
  That's pretty much what mugshots are. Companies already slurp up those mugshots and publish them and extort those arrested to pay to take them down.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  What law would be violated? What law would one use to infringe freedom of speech to continue to publish these records as a private citizen? Failing all else, one can host outside the jurisdiction.
  - psychometry 6y ago
    Records can be expunged, sometimes automatically per plea agreements. And yet these records would live on in this dataset.
    - jwilber 6y ago
      I agree that that is a very valid concern. I’d hope the data is anonymized (even though I recognize anonymized data is not perfect).
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        You are also opening yourself up to severe defamation lawsuits by publishing any information that is incorrect.
        dvtrn 6y ago
primitivesuave 6y ago
I submitted a FOIA request last year for all parking citations issued in San Francisco. The data was truly extraordinary and showed clearly how simple street sweeping citations could lead to a car being towed, auctioned, and the owner (whose name/license plate is publicly listed if they overpaid or paid a citation twice [1]) losing their business and eventually moving elsewhere. I decided against publishing my research out of fear of encroaching on the privacy of those involved. One story that comes to mind is the license plate HPPYPPS, a plumber whose company Happy Pipes provided service around SF. He was subject to numerous citations on the order of $1k a month. When his van was towed, he likely did not have the funds to retrieve it, and it was subsequently auctioned. He now does business under the same name, but in Utah. It is interesting to think of how much tax revenue the city actually lost by fining a small business out of existence, which was likely much greater than the total punitive fines levied against him. In the process of looking up companies that owned vehicles, S1 filings, and high-end cars that seem to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of fines every year, I grew exhausted and demoralized by the project and it has sat on my back burner for a year now. If anyone is interested in taking this up while respecting the privacy of those involved, let me know how to contact you and I'll share my data. 1. https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2017/11/escheatment_posting_oct_2017.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...
- swrj 6y ago
  That sounds very interesting and is not something I had ever considered. Is there a reason you did not publish your findings anonymously?
  - _1100 6y ago
    His concern was encroaching on individuals’ privacy. The author of such encroachment wasn’t their concern.
    - IAmGraydon 6y ago
      I’m pretty sure he’s talking about anonymizing the data.
fsre4 6y ago
How about a "racial social distancing" project? Let the joggers have their own "safe spaces", where they can govern and police themselves, the non-joggers can have their own jogger-free communities, and the rest of you idiots that enjoy living like this can have your "enriched," "virbrant" hell holes.
abellerose 6y ago
I find these projects potentially dangerous and for people who have been arrested in a state where the case is dismissed but they cannot expunge because of the type of charge. I was falsely arrested under the belief of arson. It happened when I was in my early 20s. The charges were dismissed and my expensive lawyer said it was the best deal to end it all. There wasn't even a fire and a cop that made the arrest had no reason to assume I was trying to start a fire. In any case, I still have to wait a few years to even expunge it. Well, when going through university I was bullied & ostracized for a period of time and eventually found out someone had googled my name. They could see the arrest on some website and just the type of charge it was.
- cwkoss 6y ago
  I wonder if you could sue the website or police officer for libel?
  - abellerose 6y ago
    Statutes of limitation makes suing the police officer impossible at this point. Some context: I'm not from an upperclass family and me just paying for the lawyer to get the case dismissed really hurt financially. As well with the strain on my parents. At the time of the event, lawyers told me it's very hard to make anything worth the effort & cost and unless clear video evidence exists of what happened. It would have been my testimony against the police officer. Police have good lawyers when they're being sued as well. I was unsure about suing a website for libel. I did research the laws around it and services do exist to attempt at removing similar material online of what happened against me. I thought after finding out why I was bullied that it wasn't guaranteed and changing my name would likely be sufficient. At this point in my life I'm still not financially well off to care enough anymore. I work in academia and I moved outside of the USA after graduating. I did learn a lot from what happened. It can really hurt to not be financially well off, the system really harms people even if they're innocent and not everyone has a happy story of lawyers lining up to take on injustice.
- thephyber 6y ago
  This sounds similar to the "right to be forgotten" concept in EU law where citizens can complain to Google to have their records removed from the search engine, but there is no way to delete all data about the incident. I don't want to trivialize the pain a wrongful arrest ad bullying caused, but I think the solution to the underlying problem is more sunlight, not less. Without being able to see how many wrongful/unfruitful arrests happened at the hands of your arresting officer and DA, power might go unchecked for longer and grow more corrupt.
bsanr2 6y ago
I'm pessimistic that any real headway can be made in this area. I suspect that many local PDs purposefully obfuscate or refrain from tracking data that could be used against their efforts to maintain their existing culture; and that even in the cases of reform-minded leaders coming to power, there are interests both below and orthogonal to, and sometimes even above, them that are not on the same page[1]. Worst of all, an incomplete attempt to compile statistics that purports to be a comprehensive overview can be just as destructive as doing nothing at all. One notes how often white supremacists, racist, Neo-Nazis, and internet trolls bring up FBI arrest statistics, which rely on local LEO reporting and certainly, at the very least, reflect the known role implicit bias based on race plays in arrest rates. [1]https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/george-floyd-minneapolis-police-reform/ https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/george-floyd-minneapolis... Semi-related: https://www.propublica.org/article/why-america-fails-at-gathering-hate-crime-statistics https://www.propublica.org/article/why-america-fails-at-gath...
hirundo 6y ago
Expect Github/Microsoft to crumble at the first, inevitable, court order to censor this material. This is derogatory data about members of among the most politically and legally powerful groups in the country. It's great to post this data there, but hopefully as only one node in a well distributed network of many clones.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
runawaybottle 6y ago
I like the spirit of this. I felt like software tech didn’t have too much of a place during the Pandemic to have an outsized impact, but here we totally do. Let’s get this data, let’s make tools to explore it, correlate it, and broadcast it.
deleted 6y ago
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gavin_gee 6y ago
I wonder if https://usafacts.org/ https://usafacts.org/ could get involved with this project?
jason5543 6y ago
How about you look at FBI data which says that i) blacks commit 20x more interracial crime than whites; ii) blacks are responsible for 50% of the crime in the US despite being only 13% of the population. Really, really disappointing watching all these WASP-descended tech workers get on their knees for a minority group that both despises whites and is responsible for their own failings. It's humiliating - stop!
chaps 6y ago
Okay, so some PROBABLY BAD THINGS about this project. I'm 100% convinced that this group is an astroturfing project, but I don't know to what end. 1. This group believes that police officer names should be redacted from all police documents. They also think that Court case IDs should be redacted because it might be PII. 2. The owner of the group is accepting police officers into their ranks, and suggestions of inviting FBI agents and police commanders have been taken seriously. When I tried to point out that this was a bad idea, I was told I was "gaslighting" the group. 3. They have no legal representation. The closest they have (as of yesterday) is a legal researcher. This researcher is very green. 4. The creator of the group is a marketing expert who is a co-owner of a marketing company named frac.tl that specializes in making things go viral using emotional issues. While that in itself might not be a bad thing, it should make trusting this movement a bit more difficult. 5. The blog post that 'started' this had three different author names, and was recently changed two weeks ago. The 'current author' has told me that this is because the website editor was changed twice. Again, not something bad in itself, but combine it with everything.. 6. The blog post that started this all is on lawsuit.org, which is owned by frac.tl. Instead of representing themselves as owners of frac.tl, the creators of this group represent themselves as lawsuit.org. 7. The owner of the group has given admin permissions to the group to people that she's never met. They have full rights to do whatever they want, including kick/ban/view email addresses. FWIW, in the past 6mo, I've been heavily involved in police accountability work. Still new to it, but the folks that I've talked to who do this work more than I agree that this is a suspicious group. If you want to support projects like this, please donate to your local police accountability groups instead! Will post links in a bit.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Any chance of finding open data/projects that are tied to organizations like the ACLU? Could the sad reality be we are at square one? What’s the gold standard here?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- csa-goose 6y ago
  I am a member of the project. Chaps spent all of 1 hour in our Slack server slinging accusations and gas lighting theories. The project has only been live for a week and believe me I will be the first to call to light anything that appears untoward. The founders and new leaders are operating in full daylight.
policeinsight 6y ago
I work for a company that provides software and hardware for police agencies across America. I have been trying to think of ways to help. Some thoughts: 1. Publicly track the FOIA status of video evidence at a given agency 2. Verify the authenticity of videos floating around on the internet 3. Create a way for citizens to verify the identities of officers in an area who use our technology 4. Put out a public portal on the capabilities of body cameras by agency: what exactly they record, how and when officers can disable them, and more
- jacobush 6y ago
  Wow, that's interesting. You are not at all afraid that your customers will find out and choose another vendor which is not so keen on keeping them accountable? Or are you going after mayors (or whatever) more set on reform?
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    It wouldn’t be a concern if these protests lead to a public mandate at the federal level to require all precincts to adhere to these capabilities by end of 2021. In other words, the old way is being deprecated, and you cops need to upgrade to v2 or game over. Need some intelligent leadership to pull this off, but it seems we lack this. We have sincere people that are providing emotional leadership, but I’m seeing very little in the realm of pragmatic and competent leadership. No draft bills, or even a consensus list of demands by leading figures with forward thinking initiatives yet. Not good, we’re on the cusp of letting another actionable moment blow past us again.
deleted 6y ago
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236 points by cpascal 6y ago

There's a project/movement forming to gather police data and make it accessible. They are working on scrapers and filing FOIA requests for the information. They are calling for volunteers and need technical folks like us. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataPolice/wiki/how_to_contribute https://www.reddit.com/r/DataPolice/wiki/how_to_contribute

kristintynski 6y ago
yup, this is the same group/movement

linsomniac 6y ago

Someone told me the other day that they had investigated the Minneapolis police blotter, after the reporting that the majority of people arrested were from out of state. That investigation turned up that the blotter didn't agree, and shortly after it was revealed the police issued an apology. Denver made a similar report, but have not made their arrest records public, for some reason...

mcbutterbunz 6y ago
Denver is so far from any other major city outside of their state. Do they expect us to believe that there are hordes of people from Colby, Kansas that drove for hours just to riot? Minneapolis is reasonable considering its the epicenter of the current issue and reasonable driving distance from Wisconsin.
- scaredtobeme 6y ago
  What's so different between Minneapolis and Wisconsin that hordes of Wisconsinites would come to town to do things that Minneapolans would never do? That seems implausible, at least to a know-nothing outsider like me.
  - mcbutterbunz 6y ago
    The only thing I can think of is to show support in the city where Floyd was killed.
    - scaredtobeme 6y ago
      For sure, but why would the Wisconsinites be behaving any differently in terms of violence, looting, etc.? I suppose it could be selection bias. Maybe it takes a higher level of anger to drive a couple hours than to go someplace local, and that's more correlated with violent behavior.
  - LiquidSky 6y ago
    Minneapolis is where the inciting incident, the murder of George Floyd, occurred and thus became the epicenter of the current wave of protests.
gre 6y ago
The police issued an apology? How about we fire someone for this. There have to be consequences or the system doesn't work.
- thephyber 6y ago
  > How about we fire someone for this. There have to be consequences or the system doesn't work. Why do you think people are protesting or rioting? There are a ton of people who feel like their desire to change "the system" is falling on deaf ears. Elections and lawsuits are really the only meaningful power the average person has over those in power. Other than that, it's up to people in power to check others in power via "checks and balances".
  - chepaslaaa 6y ago
    The citizens of the united states of america have a 2nd amendment. I might be naive, but I think most populations around the world would have revolted much earlier if they were armed the way americans are.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      > The citizens of the united states of america have a 2nd amendment. The 2A's only role in US society is to allow some people to buy some small arms some of the time and otherwise doesn't have any place in America until the country falls (at which point all of the laws/amendments are not relevant). It's not like you can use your weapon on a government official and claim under the 2A you were protecting yourself against the government. You still get prosecuted for murder; only jury nullification would save you at that point. > if they were armed the way americans are You forget that our military is the largest in the world with lots of recent experience in {counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and psychological operations}. They also have some of the best tools for identifying where most people are and are capable of shutting off most mass communications within the US if they needed to. In the end, the political polarization is such that those who own lots of guns tend to be the same demographics who revere police/military/order and are currently in the camp that overlooks / detests the protesters, saying their complaints are overblown. I'm pretty sure that's largely due to a sustained PR effort by the post-WW2 Defense Department including sponsorships of sporting events that are more likely to attract those same demographics.
genghisjahn 6y ago
Is there a link to this or is the some one that told you, like, totes trustworthy?
- linsomniac 6y ago
  Yeah, sorry about being vague. Didn't want to expose anyone to potential dox anyone. In retrospect I should have dropped the source and added the reference.
- thephyber 6y ago
  A number of news organizations (local Fox affiliate, CNN, CBS[1]) verified with the county jail intake database that the first statements of the mayors were inaccurate. Both mayors retracted when contradictory evidence was presented by media. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-officials-say-most-people-who-acted-violently-at-protests-are-not-state-residents/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-officials-say-most-pe...
  - genghisjahn 6y ago
    Awesome! Thank you. I think we're all a little skeptical of things that easily fit the narrative we want to be true(or not). Having a source helps a lot.
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
The Minneapolis Mayor said that he later apologized after people looked up public arrest records that showed 80+% were from Minneapolis itself. The Mayor gave some dismissing report that he got it from the police department.
ericwood 6y ago
Denver also, as of last year, encrypts its police channels, which makes any sort of outsider oversight impossible.
- junon 6y ago
  This is a Good Thing. Remember the Boston bomber? I don't have a solution, but making all police communications public in real-time only puts innocent people at risk.
  - semicolon_storm 6y ago
    Removing yet another avenue for police accountability & transparency also puts innocent people at risk.
    - junon 6y ago
      In isolated incidents, perhaps. As a general rule, no. Police officers are not evil and crooked as a general rule - only the paranoid or willfully ignorant believe that.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        Police officers organizations are, as a general rule, very strongly actively supported by police officers, and police officers organizations, as a rule, strongly defend officers involved (demonstrably so, not merely accused) in corrupt and abusive acts, not just in terms of assuring adequate legal and administrative representation, but as far as publicly slandering individuals and organizations calling for the general principal of accountability and advancing specific well-founded complaints. Police officers, therefore, are generally complicit, and actively rather than merely passively so, in perpetuating and advancing the culture of unaccountability that fosters abuse and enables those officers who are direct abusers. Most officers may not be direct abusers but that's not the only way to actively participate in promoting abuse.
        6y ago
bilekas 6y ago
Trump turned military on their own citizens after dissidence, instead of trying to calm shit down. Someone told you, not on paper of course but it's not a stretch to believe. Whats easy to believe is the insane underlining racism that exists in the US. Leader of the world ? I think my Grandfather who was a lil racist (innocently enough in my upbringing. Wouldn't shop at a chinese store etc, never would act on it. Never. I imagine he'd turn his grave at the US. The US is probably up there with the most racist country on the planet. That's insane. Might be a close cut though with Russia. All that said, let it sink in, you've a leader who just turned the military on US citizens. The America of the land of the free and brave.. Kinda doesn't apply anymore. Well done America. You destroyed the ideal of what you sold everyone (that works better elsewhere). Been nice knowing you. Enjoy.
- dmoy 6y ago
  Bringing in the national guard (and sometimes even active duty) during riots is the same thing that happened in 1962, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1980, 1992, 1999, etc etc (probably missed a lot). So to the extent that "you've a leader who just turned the military on US citizens" is true, it's also been true for many decades.

noman-land 6y ago

There was a similar project posted here just earlier today. Show HN: Citizen Police Data Project – Police allegation data made accessible - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374345

chrisco255 6y ago

I'm not sure the goal of this project but collecting criminal arrest information and making it public is not going to help anyone who's been wrongfully arrested, or anyone who's had their charge expunged. I'm fairly sure that storing and exposing this data improperly without respect to subsequent court actions is in violation of the law.

choward 6y ago
That's pretty much what mugshots are. Companies already slurp up those mugshots and publish them and extort those arrested to pay to take them down.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
What law would be violated? What law would one use to infringe freedom of speech to continue to publish these records as a private citizen? Failing all else, one can host outside the jurisdiction.
- psychometry 6y ago
  Records can be expunged, sometimes automatically per plea agreements. And yet these records would live on in this dataset.
  - jwilber 6y ago
    I agree that that is a very valid concern. I’d hope the data is anonymized (even though I recognize anonymized data is not perfect).
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      You are also opening yourself up to severe defamation lawsuits by publishing any information that is incorrect.
      - dvtrn 6y ago

primitivesuave 6y ago

I submitted a FOIA request last year for all parking citations issued in San Francisco. The data was truly extraordinary and showed clearly how simple street sweeping citations could lead to a car being towed, auctioned, and the owner (whose name/license plate is publicly listed if they overpaid or paid a citation twice [1]) losing their business and eventually moving elsewhere. I decided against publishing my research out of fear of encroaching on the privacy of those involved. One story that comes to mind is the license plate HPPYPPS, a plumber whose company Happy Pipes provided service around SF. He was subject to numerous citations on the order of $1k a month. When his van was towed, he likely did not have the funds to retrieve it, and it was subsequently auctioned. He now does business under the same name, but in Utah. It is interesting to think of how much tax revenue the city actually lost by fining a small business out of existence, which was likely much greater than the total punitive fines levied against him. In the process of looking up companies that owned vehicles, S1 filings, and high-end cars that seem to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of fines every year, I grew exhausted and demoralized by the project and it has sat on my back burner for a year now. If anyone is interested in taking this up while respecting the privacy of those involved, let me know how to contact you and I'll share my data. 1. https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2017/11/escheatment_posting_oct_2017.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...

swrj 6y ago
That sounds very interesting and is not something I had ever considered. Is there a reason you did not publish your findings anonymously?
- _1100 6y ago
  His concern was encroaching on individuals’ privacy. The author of such encroachment wasn’t their concern.
  - IAmGraydon 6y ago
    I’m pretty sure he’s talking about anonymizing the data.

fsre4 6y ago

How about a "racial social distancing" project? Let the joggers have their own "safe spaces", where they can govern and police themselves, the non-joggers can have their own jogger-free communities, and the rest of you idiots that enjoy living like this can have your "enriched," "virbrant" hell holes.

abellerose 6y ago

I find these projects potentially dangerous and for people who have been arrested in a state where the case is dismissed but they cannot expunge because of the type of charge. I was falsely arrested under the belief of arson. It happened when I was in my early 20s. The charges were dismissed and my expensive lawyer said it was the best deal to end it all. There wasn't even a fire and a cop that made the arrest had no reason to assume I was trying to start a fire. In any case, I still have to wait a few years to even expunge it. Well, when going through university I was bullied & ostracized for a period of time and eventually found out someone had googled my name. They could see the arrest on some website and just the type of charge it was.

cwkoss 6y ago
I wonder if you could sue the website or police officer for libel?
- abellerose 6y ago
  Statutes of limitation makes suing the police officer impossible at this point. Some context: I'm not from an upperclass family and me just paying for the lawyer to get the case dismissed really hurt financially. As well with the strain on my parents. At the time of the event, lawyers told me it's very hard to make anything worth the effort & cost and unless clear video evidence exists of what happened. It would have been my testimony against the police officer. Police have good lawyers when they're being sued as well. I was unsure about suing a website for libel. I did research the laws around it and services do exist to attempt at removing similar material online of what happened against me. I thought after finding out why I was bullied that it wasn't guaranteed and changing my name would likely be sufficient. At this point in my life I'm still not financially well off to care enough anymore. I work in academia and I moved outside of the USA after graduating. I did learn a lot from what happened. It can really hurt to not be financially well off, the system really harms people even if they're innocent and not everyone has a happy story of lawyers lining up to take on injustice.
thephyber 6y ago
This sounds similar to the "right to be forgotten" concept in EU law where citizens can complain to Google to have their records removed from the search engine, but there is no way to delete all data about the incident. I don't want to trivialize the pain a wrongful arrest ad bullying caused, but I think the solution to the underlying problem is more sunlight, not less. Without being able to see how many wrongful/unfruitful arrests happened at the hands of your arresting officer and DA, power might go unchecked for longer and grow more corrupt.

bsanr2 6y ago

I'm pessimistic that any real headway can be made in this area. I suspect that many local PDs purposefully obfuscate or refrain from tracking data that could be used against their efforts to maintain their existing culture; and that even in the cases of reform-minded leaders coming to power, there are interests both below and orthogonal to, and sometimes even above, them that are not on the same page[1]. Worst of all, an incomplete attempt to compile statistics that purports to be a comprehensive overview can be just as destructive as doing nothing at all. One notes how often white supremacists, racist, Neo-Nazis, and internet trolls bring up FBI arrest statistics, which rely on local LEO reporting and certainly, at the very least, reflect the known role implicit bias based on race plays in arrest rates. [1]https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/george-floyd-minneapolis-police-reform/ https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/george-floyd-minneapolis... Semi-related: https://www.propublica.org/article/why-america-fails-at-gathering-hate-crime-statistics https://www.propublica.org/article/why-america-fails-at-gath...

hirundo 6y ago

Expect Github/Microsoft to crumble at the first, inevitable, court order to censor this material. This is derogatory data about members of among the most politically and legally powerful groups in the country. It's great to post this data there, but hopefully as only one node in a well distributed network of many clones.

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runawaybottle 6y ago

I like the spirit of this. I felt like software tech didn’t have too much of a place during the Pandemic to have an outsized impact, but here we totally do. Let’s get this data, let’s make tools to explore it, correlate it, and broadcast it.

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gavin_gee 6y ago

I wonder if https://usafacts.org/ https://usafacts.org/ could get involved with this project?

jason5543 6y ago

How about you look at FBI data which says that i) blacks commit 20x more interracial crime than whites; ii) blacks are responsible for 50% of the crime in the US despite being only 13% of the population. Really, really disappointing watching all these WASP-descended tech workers get on their knees for a minority group that both despises whites and is responsible for their own failings. It's humiliating - stop!

chaps 6y ago

Okay, so some PROBABLY BAD THINGS about this project. I'm 100% convinced that this group is an astroturfing project, but I don't know to what end. 1. This group believes that police officer names should be redacted from all police documents. They also think that Court case IDs should be redacted because it might be PII. 2. The owner of the group is accepting police officers into their ranks, and suggestions of inviting FBI agents and police commanders have been taken seriously. When I tried to point out that this was a bad idea, I was told I was "gaslighting" the group. 3. They have no legal representation. The closest they have (as of yesterday) is a legal researcher. This researcher is very green. 4. The creator of the group is a marketing expert who is a co-owner of a marketing company named frac.tl that specializes in making things go viral using emotional issues. While that in itself might not be a bad thing, it should make trusting this movement a bit more difficult. 5. The blog post that 'started' this had three different author names, and was recently changed two weeks ago. The 'current author' has told me that this is because the website editor was changed twice. Again, not something bad in itself, but combine it with everything.. 6. The blog post that started this all is on lawsuit.org, which is owned by frac.tl. Instead of representing themselves as owners of frac.tl, the creators of this group represent themselves as lawsuit.org. 7. The owner of the group has given admin permissions to the group to people that she's never met. They have full rights to do whatever they want, including kick/ban/view email addresses. FWIW, in the past 6mo, I've been heavily involved in police accountability work. Still new to it, but the folks that I've talked to who do this work more than I agree that this is a suspicious group. If you want to support projects like this, please donate to your local police accountability groups instead! Will post links in a bit.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Any chance of finding open data/projects that are tied to organizations like the ACLU? Could the sad reality be we are at square one? What’s the gold standard here?
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csa-goose 6y ago
I am a member of the project. Chaps spent all of 1 hour in our Slack server slinging accusations and gas lighting theories. The project has only been live for a week and believe me I will be the first to call to light anything that appears untoward. The founders and new leaders are operating in full daylight.

policeinsight 6y ago

I work for a company that provides software and hardware for police agencies across America. I have been trying to think of ways to help. Some thoughts: 1. Publicly track the FOIA status of video evidence at a given agency 2. Verify the authenticity of videos floating around on the internet 3. Create a way for citizens to verify the identities of officers in an area who use our technology 4. Put out a public portal on the capabilities of body cameras by agency: what exactly they record, how and when officers can disable them, and more

jacobush 6y ago
Wow, that's interesting. You are not at all afraid that your customers will find out and choose another vendor which is not so keen on keeping them accountable? Or are you going after mayors (or whatever) more set on reform?
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  It wouldn’t be a concern if these protests lead to a public mandate at the federal level to require all precincts to adhere to these capabilities by end of 2021. In other words, the old way is being deprecated, and you cops need to upgrade to v2 or game over. Need some intelligent leadership to pull this off, but it seems we lack this. We have sincere people that are providing emotional leadership, but I’m seeing very little in the realm of pragmatic and competent leadership. No draft bills, or even a consensus list of demands by leading figures with forward thinking initiatives yet. Not good, we’re on the cusp of letting another actionable moment blow past us again.

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