Via not-exactly-DFH-territory Quartz:
The recent deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of policemen have spurred calls to curb police violence in America. But a critical element to understanding the problem is missing: data. There’s no comprehensive database of law-enforcement misconduct, and without reliable statistics, it’s more difficult to identify abusive police departments and hold them accountable.
Three teenage siblings from Georgia want to help. Today, they’re releasing Five-O, an app for Android and iPhone that aims to crowdsource a nationwide police-ratings database—a Yelp for police departments, as one of its young developers describes it.
Five-O asks users to log their interactions with the police, including details about the incident (“Was the stop legitimate?” “Were you physically assaulted?”) and a description of the officer (badge number, race, gender). Officers are rated with an A-to-F letter grade. Those grades are converted into an average score and collected (along with other anonymous information from the submissions) in a database that can be searched by location…
Five-O is the latest in a series of high- and low-tech citizen tools created to monitor police. Copwatch started in 1990 in Berkeley, California, to combat harassment of the homeless, and has since gone nationwide. Two years ago, the New York Civil Liberties Union released an app to document stop-and-frisks, joining other apps that surreptitiously record police. And of course plenty of people film their interactions with cops (even when they’re wrongly told they’re not allowed to) and share the results on social networks like Instagram, Vine, and Twitter.
Five-O is a little different. It intends to centralize data from across the US, not only to track abuse but to create incentives for police departments to do better. “We’ll definitely highlight the positives so that they can be an example for any negative interactions taking place,” Ima says. They also plan to add a function for police to respond to complaints…
More detail at the link.
I don’t have a smartphone, and as an old fat white aspiring agoraphobe I’m hardly the target market. But one likes to encourage initiative in the rising generation. Anybody want to offer an opinion on Five-0? The other apps mentioned? Suggestions for further research?
NotMax
It’s come to this.
Shipping Containers: The new urban homes
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: They built an office out of them here a few years back.
lamh36
McCaskill may have just lost all the goodwill she had. unlike Nixon & McCuillogh she may still has some to give but she lost ALOT
just saw Claire McCaskill on Lawrence, someone described the interview has “Dems sticking together”, ie McCaskill. Nixon, McCullough. think about that and you’ll understand why the interview pissed me off.
I may not be surprised if he gets indicted (though I’d be less surprised if he doesn’t) but I suspect even if he is indicted, the people of Feguson will never know justice. Here hoping the DOJ can make a case.
I’m going to bed. I plan to try my best to ignore as much as possible what comes out tomorrow.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@lamh36: Don’t be surprised if the grand jury takes a while. It is quite likely to take a week or more. If it does; it will neither be a good or a bad sign.
Violet
@lamh36: Saw on something that McCaskill tore into Ed Rendell on some show today.
App is an interesting idea. If it turns into Yelp for Cops it could be a problem.
tc
@lamh36: She was terrible! And yet I bet she still has the nerve to make the rounds with African-Americans and other liberal voting blocks come election-time, hat in hand, talking “unity.”
I swear all these elected Southern Democrats are worthless.
aimai
@tc: The only thing worse is an elected Southern Republican.
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): nothing surprises me much when it comes to Black folk getting fair shake particularly involving the justice system.
TaMara (BHF)
So…proud new pet parent that I am, I put up a bunch of new Bixby pictures. Sigh. I wasn’t going to be that person.
At least it keeps me distracted from all the ugly this week.
Violet
Hey, look–there’s that number again:
Bob In Portland
Interesting piece about the way the NY Times covers Ukraine.
As a side note, I discovered that two of the NYT’s crack reporters covering Ukraine, Kramer and Herzshenhorn, both cowrote articles with Judith Miller during the buildup to Dubya’s Iraq war. Do you like their reporting on Ukraine as much as you enjoyed them lying us into a war?
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): of course it will that is probably the plan after all. Lawrence just mentioned, they’d stick to the “grueling” schedule of the grand jury meeting only once a week. so that it may take until Sept.
until that time. Darren Wilson on paid leave, walking free. aren’t evidence in grand jury sealed? so I figur they expect the people to forget about it all. so if no indictment after lets say a month and they think what? people will be happy cause “oh well they tried”
ugh, nevermind, I’m done. we’ll see what happens, but my spidey senses are tingling and they don’t see good things. whatever…I’m very pessimistic
good night
scav
Isn’t this also rather the flip-side of the sketchy app that was discussed recently?
The Fat Kate Middleton
@tc: She is,indeed, perfectly terrible. I’ve sat in front of her while she gave more than one speech (and she LOVES Hilary, BTW0. And yet … and yet … it’s Missouri. Who could you possibly find to replace her who would be better?
Violet
@TaMara (BHF): OMG! So adorable! Who’s the big white bear (?) with the pink feet? That picture is too cute. And the one with the brown dog (?) on the floor. Look at those feet!
Mike J
@tc:
Missouri is in the midwest.
TaMara (BHF)
@Violet: That pink rabbit actually belongs to one of the cats,but I liked the size scale. The big floppy dog on the floor (stuffed one, not real one) I picked up at the thrift store for Bixby, for three bucks, hoping he’d find it snuggly. I didn’t realize how snuggly. He naps there every day, also goes there to mope when the cats don’t succumb to his many charms.
tc
Geographically. Intellectually it’s the south.
Violet
@TaMara (BHF): That’s a rabbit? Looks like a bear. Cute, though! Love how he’s taken to the brown dog. He really does look like he’s owns it. I love the picture where your cat it just staring at him like “What the hell is this thing in my house?” Heh.
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
They had no intention of ever convening a grand jury.
The fix is in.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I thought McCaskill was an early Obama endorser, or was that after HRC was on her way to headline a big fundraiser for CMcC when the latter made a joke about not trusting Bubba with her daughter. According to the Politco Boys, HRC heard about it and said “Fuck her. Cancel it”
Google suggests McC’s blunder was during her own ’06 campaign, and she endorsed Obama in January of ’08
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Because a post that never once refers to Ukraine by its actual name, calling it “Novorossiya” at every instance (unless directly quoting someone else) is of course entirely objective.
Skerry
@tc: Just like Indiana
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O’Donnell addresses the question that’s been bugging me for days: Did Wilson make an incident report on the shooting? We don’t know. HOw the hell do we not know this, one way or the other?
trollhattan
@Bob In Portland: Hodor!
Suzanne
Has Darren Wilson been seen in public since he was named as Brown’s murderer?
Probably hanging out in Florida with Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@rikyrah: The grand jury proceedings begin tomorrow.
FlyingToaster
@Mike J: Useta be. Like in the 60s and 70s, when I was born and raised there.
But my (KC area) high school was chock full of competing religious whack-jobs, competing to prove who was the “christianest” of them all. The Catholics could not attend the same before-school Bible study as the Protestants, and the 50 asians, 4 black kids, and 2 jews (me and my next-down sister) were welcome in neither — as if. Their politics were just as antediluvian. Add in the racism and misogyny, it was a perfectly wonderful place to be an adolescent.
When the opportunity to leave came along at 18, I took it. As did both of my sisters, and 15 years later even my
lame-assglibertarian brother threw in the towel.The idiocracy I went to school with are running the joint now. Outside of University City, Columbia, and parts of St. Louis city and Kansas City, it’s all controlled by a bunch of fat white men — just like 1861. These cops (and the cops where I grew up) are all Quantrill’s Raiders wannabees.
It looks a lot more like Selma 1960 than like Truman’s territory.
Violet
@Suzanne: No he has not. He fled his house a few days before the Captain gave out his name, according to his neighbors. They said he was mowing his lawn, some people showed up, they all went inside and he left shortly thereafter with them. Don’t think he finished mowing his lawn.
Suzanne
@Violet: Then I hope that, in addition to a murder conviction, he gets cited for having a messy yard.
Violet
@Suzanne: No such luck. His neighbors report that people come to mow the lawn and pick up the mail every couple of days.
lamh36
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: no she’s def early Obama supporter. my disappointment in that interview doesn’t make me doubt her support of the prez. it pissed me off because all her actions up until now felt like lip service after hearing that interview.
burnspbesq
@tc:
Hardly. They all share two important characteristics. (1) They are in office. (2) No Republican is in that office.
Low bar? Maybe. So?
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Style request: Can you take the hyperlink to your blockquotes out of the blockquote itself and put it in the intro? E.g., attach the link to “Via not-exactly-DFH-territory Quartz” rather than to “The recent deaths.” It becomes murky to see at a glance who is quoting whom when the blockquoted piece itself contains hyperlinks to other stuff, as here, especially on a tablet or phone where you can’t do a rollover on the link and see the destination address at the bottom of the browser.
Someone had a pretty convincing mini-rant on this a couple of weeks ago, but since then you seem to have standardized on doing it the opposite way. Please consider a change.
burnspbesq
@Bob In Portland:
If guilt by association is all you have, you have nothing.
John Revolta
@FlyingToaster: This is why, for all the bitching people are doing about Nixon, he stands (in MO) as a shining tower of non-derpitude. In the last year alone, he’s vetoed many nutty bills from a legislature hell-bent on turning us into Kansas 2.0.
He’s outta here in a couple years, and I’m planning on being gone before that.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
That has been a thing for quite a while. Some of them are pretty cool.
BruinKid
I see that some assholes from the Revolutionary Communist Party are in Ferguson trying to incite the crowd to violence against the police.
Fuck those communists. Antonio French has been talking about it, and Rachel finally mentioned it as well on her show tonight before she interviewed him. Cab driver Umar Lee also mentioned him last night.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
@NotMax:
Call me crazy, but I think that’s really effing cool.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@NotMax: I lived in one converted to prefab living quarters – some Chinese company did the work on the conversion and it was outstanding – for an entire month. It was awesome.
I want one for a workshop, it would fit (barely) in my backyard. Sadly and stupidly, forbidden by city ordinance.
If you get one, you need to get rid of the wood floor as it is laced with insecticide. And you need to get all the interior paint off – the simple method is to just drench it in gasoline and set it on fire, but that’s probably against the law where you live. Also, don’t breathe the smoke. Once your new housing unit is decontaminated, build a nice inside. You will need air conditioning and huge amounts of insulation. A foundation can be as simple as four concrete blocks.
Container housing is seriously a thing, and should be. There’s an awful lot of empty containers out there, and if we ever run out of used ones new ones are dirt simple to make.
Bob In Portland
Here’s an interesting look on the West throwing euros at Ukraine.
Enjoy.
dww44
@aimai: You won my internets today! Exactly the truth.
McCaskill was definitely carrying water for Jay Nixon and Bob McCullough this evening. In his interview with her, Lawrence O’Donnell said that it should be a simple process (whether to indict Darren Wilson), she disagreed and said “No,it was gonna be long and laborious, yada yada yada.. She pissed me off right there and I am not her constituent.
Loved it when the resident police expert who’s been on many an MSNBC show for the last 10 days came on after her appearance and said how ironic it was that there was all this buck passing going on in the home state of the “buck stops here” Harry Truman. There has been NO political courage shown by any of the elected non African American officials in that city and state
CONGRATULATIONS!
@TaMara (BHF): jesus christ that dog is cute.
Eric U.
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I want a container for my shop too, but I wonder if it would pass muster around here
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: “Interesting”? With sourcing like this: “One of my readers heard from a Ukrainian woman working in Britain that her husband back home earns €200 a month as an electrician, but is paid another €200 a month, from a German bank, to join demonstrations”? Shit, grant that a guy a Pulitzer right now, it’s no contest.
GregB
The family of murdered journalist James Foly have asked that no one share, post or watch any of the images produced by his murderers.
I think that is an honorable request and ask that fellow bloggers share the message.
dww44
@Mike J: Maybe so, but it is apparently pretty much Southern in its outlook and politics. Remember the Missouri Compromise?
I’m a lifelong Southerner and the last 10 days have shown me that their elected officials, while a few more have D’s after their names, are no more progressive than any in my state. For me it has been rather eye opening and has done a good bit to explain the very conservative politics of a friend (employed at the local military base) who was born and raised in St. Louis. She who only watches Fox News when she’s at home.!! And buys all those pseudo best seller non-fiction/fiction conservative books for sale on our supermarket shelves..
Amir Khalid
@Bob In Portland:
That’s pretty thin gruel. Even if it’s true, it’s certainly not as heinous as Russia demanding the right to choose Ukraine’s friends and allies, let alone sponsoring “separatist” fighters in Ukraine.
FlyingToaster
@John Revolta: This.
I keep trying to explain to people that, as useless as he seems up here in the People’s Republic, he’s absolutely the best you’re going to see in Missouri for a Democrat in a statewide office. McCaskill the same. And I don’t see a Democrat following Nixon, cause the bench is so shallow.
@dww44: It’s exasperating, in addition to the irony.
Off to bed, all. Jury duty in effing Lowell (nearly an hour away) tomorrow.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
It’s just freakin’ creepy how much Russia sounds like Ukraine’s abusive ex-boyfriend. It’s no fair that the Europeans are winning Ukraine over by being nice and buying them things, so Russia is going to beat Ukraine into submission to prove how much Russia loves them.
max
@rikyrah: They had no intention of ever convening a grand jury. The fix is in.
Oh, they’ll convene a grand jury. There are plenty of ways to lead a grand jury *away* from an indictment, just like there are plenty of ways to lead a grand jury *to* an indictment.
Or, in other words, if a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, they can convince a grand jury that Ted Bundy is really a good guy. (They just don’t normally do that – normally they just forget to take it to the grand jury at all.)
In this case, the St. Louis prosecutor clearly is backing the cop, but he also needs to put on a show, so some theatre we will get.
max
[‘They will regret that there just isn’t enough evidence to secure a indictment, much less a conviction.’]
ruemara
@NotMax: When I got my new volvo, the feeling of relief that I had a nice wagon I could sleep in, just in case, was palpable. And saddening,
I think every person of color should get this app.
srv
Radley Balko Much?
srv
@NotMax:
One day, we can just reload you on the container ship and send you to China.
Cheap living, if you can breathe.
rikyrah
@max:
They will not call one of the witnesses that we have seen on tv. Bet on it.
fleeting expletive
I had a weird afternoon. My car battery died and AAA came out, It died several days ago AAA guy said all was good but the amps were insufficient
.. so I went to Auto Zone where I had bought the batt. It’s hot and I am an old lady so someone fetches a folding chair for me and I people watch for 45 minutes. Dadgum there are a lot of old white portly guys and portly women out there, but 4 or five young adult not all white skinny guys and one who wears neat polo shirt and khakis. One fine old lesbian I would guess,very fat woman with a butchy haircut who works there.
It was worth it. And I also have to go somewhere else to get my tail light fixed. Gah, you have a very fine 13 year old Volvo and you have to go do stuff to get it street legal. Also one of the clerks said, loud enough, there’s an old lady up here who needs help. So I said “Yeah, I’m your designated old lady here.”
I just don’t know what to think anymore/ I think he was maybe trying to make a joke but it didn’t work or else he was being an asshole.
goblue72
@FlyingToaster: Yup. McCaskill’s job isn’t to be the Second Coming of Saul Lewinsky. McCaskill’s job (like other conservaDems) is to ensure the Harry Reid’s title is Senate Majority Leader, not Senate Minority Leader.
Its not about the people, its about the Party. Wish more liberals would understand that.
Amir Khalid
@goblue72:
Hmm.
max
@rikyrah: They will not call one of the witnesses that we have seen on tv. Bet on it.
I would not be the least bit surprised.
max
[‘He’s gonna walk, likely.’]
wasabi gasp
@fleeting expletive:
Wink all sexy like and tell him he’s your whippersnapper now.
James E. Powell
@Mike J:
Missouri is in the midwest.
It is if you are talking geography, but we’re talking politics.
James E. Powell
@dww44:
There has been NO political courage shown by any of the elected non African American officials in that city and state.
White politicians in reddish, purple, and even some blue states/districts are scared shitless to stand up for African/Americans. It is easy to despise them for it, but their only goal in life is to get re-elected.
JordanRules
@James E. Powell: All true. And it sucks. It would likely be easier to swallow I suppose, if it was about something we should and could fix and not about skin color.
Pattonbt
Anyone who thinks any charges or disciplinary actions will be laid / taken against Officer Wilson are going to be severely disappointed. Long down the road there may be some action against the Ferguson PD in their abysmal handling of this shooting and subsequent actions from the DOJ, but that will be many years after all this is forgotten. Mike Brown and his family will never know honest justice.
I just hope Ferguson and STL don’t burn when the grand jury finds the murder justified and files no charges. All the police officer has to say is “I was threatened” and that’s all she wrote. White police officers word against “those peoples” and Mike Brown was a thug anyway, right? I mean he was big, black, young and probably wore his pants below his waist. Come on, he had to be bad!
With no video to contradict the officer, it’s over.
TriassicSands
I suspect that most police shootings of people with knives are unnecessary. The times says:
Why didn’t the police officers back up, move away, give the man room? There seems to be a belief that the police must “stand their ground” and that all these incidents have to be ended in the least amount of time possible. I believe police should be trained to consider killing an unarmed or knife-wielding person a professional failure, regardless of what legal ramifications follow. They kill people because they can, not because they have to. In video after video, I see the police acting much more aggressively than is necessary and they shoot and kill people who don’t need to die.
We subdue grizzly bears without killing them, but when it’s a person, the police shoot to kill.
I’m sick of all the police violence in this country. Shooting someone should be a last resort and the police should do everything they can to avoid shooting people who aren’t shooting at them.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
As numerous people have mentioned, it’s really no different from the U.S.’s abusive practices in Central America. Remember us arming “freedom fighters” that raped and killed nuns as a response to one of these countries actually getting out from under our wings. Great powers like them some sphere of influence.
Why that’s supposed to make me side with the Russians, however, is a mystery.
Chris
@TriassicSands:
Actually, what occurs to me in all these situations is “if you really feel that you have to neutralize him, why don’t you just tase him?” Yes, I know tasers can be lethal too. Surely the odds of that are at least lower than if he was shot?
I think the same thing in 99% of the “home defense” scenarios that NRA nuts keep spewing: “this isn’t a situation where you NEED a gun, a taser will do just as well, and then you can call the cops.” There ARE weapons that were designed to be nonlethal. You won’t always be able to use them in lieu of deadly force, but it’d be nice if deadly force wasn’t the go-to, catch-all, Plan A it seems to have become in our society.
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
The Russian argument is basically: “But Mom, all the other superpowers are doing it!”
Duke of Clay
@Mike J: Both Missouri and Kentucky had rival Confederate governments and fielded military units on the Confederate side. The Confederate flags bore 13 stars for the 13 states of the Confederacy — including MO and KY.
Bendal
It’s called “suicide by cop” around here. Basically someone goes out in public, begins acting strangely so someone calls the cops, then begins threatening them until he gets shot. A few months ago there was a public standoff between someone doing this and the Durham NC police. He was at an intersection screaming at them to shoot him, while they stood about 100′ away watching him. Media cameras were there; it looked like he was holding something (knife? gun? rubber duck?) while the police talked to him. Eventually he advanced on the police and they shot & killed him. The media later asked them why didn’t they just taser him; IIRC the response was “sometimes if the suspect is on drugs that doesn’t work, and the range is only about 12′ max”. So the cops would be risking their own safety to let a threatening suspect get that close to use the taser on him, so it’s just easier to shoot them. So much for Officer Murtaugh’s “I shoot them in the leg” attitude.
El Caganer
@Chris: I don’t understand why the US government feels compelled to side with anybody over there. Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian governments are particularly believable in their statements about what’s going on. And there doesn’t seem to be a lot for the forces of truth/justice/the American Way to choose from between a Russian autocracy that appears to be tipping further and further into fascism and a Ukrainian oligarchy with Nazis crawling around in the woodwork. Unless there’s some really vital US interest at stake, maybe we ought to butt out.
gian
@Bendal:
taser guns use darts attached to wires. they’re not the most accurate of devices and the darts can get caught up in a fold of clothing or one can hit and one can miss.
cops are not chuck conners from the rifleman, or the lone ranger, they don’t shoot the guns out of people’s hands or in the leg to get their attention. The question or issue is how often do they decide to escalate to use of the gun when they don’t need to do so and is that their training…
the cops who gunned down douglas zerby in long beach never announced their presence. they shot him from cover for sitting in a chair and twirling a garden hose nozzle. the city paid his family some 6 million over it.
mclaren
I predict large numbers of arrests and destroyed cellphones of people using the Five-Oh app.
“Sir, are you running the Five-Oh app? Place your cellphone ON THE GROUND and ASSUME THE POSITION, ASSHOLE!”
The TIm Channel
I am all in favor of any means of policing the police. Also, shipping container houses are not the worst thing in the world. Matter of fact, they are a preferred building material of the Tiny Home crowd/movement. Enjoy.