
Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months - nicpottier
http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/10/29/23084403/programmer-tim-clemans-resigns-from-police-department-over-turf-battle
======
aggieben
As a programmer, this seems like this is almost entirely Clemans fault. Good
grief: you can't just walk into a mission-critical, _production_ environment
and start deploying crap, even if the dispatchers like it.

Yelling at your boss who rightly pulled the plug on that stunt is hardly
justified. Whether or not it's a firing offense depends on a lot of things the
article doesn't tell us, but..

This is really not the "idealistic and pure-hearted lowly programmer" vs
"corrupt and overly political, turf-controlling police culture" it makes it
out to be.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
I'm not sure that the author of the post would understand enough to provide
any evidence that Clemans deployed anything in an unsafe or inappropriate
manner. Maybe he just deployed a webapp that the people in the communications
center could access. The post is so light on details that I can't discern that
he did anything wrong.

~~~
kzhahou
> Maybe he just deployed a webapp that the people in the communications center
> could access...

I can hardly thing of a single bit of code that should be deployed in such a
literal life-and-death environment, which shouldn't go through FULL REVIEW.

Maybe it's a small webapp that gives a bit more information -- which leads
dispatchers in the wrong direction one out of ten times. Maybe his
"highlighting the most critical calls" was highlighting the wrong ones. Maybe
he solved a minor problem only, but took up dispatchers' time in training.

~~~
sleepybrett
Clemens is in the comment thread. It seems like the system he wrote read out
of the 911 call database and displayed all the active calls. Then highlighted
calls based on keywords so the head dispatcher could more easily see high
priority calls ( crimes in progress ? ).

This seems very safe. The captain in question is just protecting his turf.
Even if he saw the benefit he would never admit it because it wasn't his idea.

~~~
rayiner
How is that very safe? Presumably were looking at this unreviewed web app
instead of what they were looking at before.

~~~
fineman
How about all the important calls they let languish because of the bide-
shedders interfering? How is that safe?

Can the naysayers be sued by the family of some kid who died because
dispatchers weren't allowed to evaluate a new tool because change scares some
people? (No, of course not. And that's why there are so many bikeshedders.)

~~~
harryh
Bikeshedding is when leaders ignore complex & core questions to focus on
trivial ones that are easier to understand. The tools that dispatchers use to
handle incoming called doesn't sound like a trivial question.

~~~
fineman
The core of bikeshedding is continued nitpicking at the trivial by those who
can't understand or don't know enough to grasp the its actual significance.
And it's not just leaders.

Certainly change would be bad if the programmer in question blidnly modified
existing systems. But I don't see any of the reactionaries asking that - they
just assume the worst and go off on how unsafe it might have been.

But a new webapp bundling data from other systems into a new view? It
shouldn't be any problem at all. The professionals on the phones are the very
ones who would have to evaluate the information it returned so there's no way
around letting them use it.

------
arcticfox
From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and
helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the
helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.

~~~
ihsw
It seems pretty clear that the captain wasn't dismissing the helpfulness but
rather dismissing Clemans' authority to deploy the project.

It's a power play, and Clemans' disdain for rigid power structures clearly
contributed to the friction between him and the SPD administration.

EDIT: the captain's response is not unwarranted at all. Emergency response
call centers are a critical public resource and he is ultimately in charge of
them.

~~~
btilly
What is worse, it is not even clear that the captain is entirely wrong here.

If Clemans screwed up, he had the potential to have 911 calls be routed to
/dev/null. If he succeeded, the department became more efficient. However the
911 system is already working "well enough". Therefore in terms of outside
perception any win will be small, and disasters could be huge.

He is not the one who has been give the authority to make this kind of risk
decision. The captain is. If Clemans screwed up, the captain would be the one
getting fired. Keeping the captain out of the loop is irresponsible. It
doesn't matter that it worked. It doesn't matter how good the system is. You
need to work with stakeholders, and not behind their backs.

However Clemans seems like the kind of person who can never understand this
point.

~~~
sleepybrett
Clememns is in the comments explaining how the system worked. He just reads
the current calls out of a database and displays them with some highlighting.
There is no write.

~~~
foobarian
Not only that but from his other comments, the problem wasn't this particular
system, but similar projects going forward.

------
timclemans206
The software doesn't highlight calls it highlights messages with keywords.
This was asked for by a dispatcher who said during emergencies it's hard to
spot the important messages. This particular dispatcher's job was to monitor
all of the other dispatchers and ensure that calls were prioritized correctly.
The software itself did not do the dispatchers job for them. Calls are
prioritized before the Chief Dispatcher typically sees them. There are calls
the Chief Dispatchers are supposed to know about but are always notified of.
This software was a tool to help keep the Chief Dispatchers in the loop. They
dictated which keywords they wanted to use.

The meeting was scheduled by the director of IT at the time, a former Amazon
VP who left two weeks after this incident, about how to allow me to continue
developing apps like this. He was trying to put structure about it. The
Captain wanted none of it.

~~~
tptacek
What kind of messages? What kind of highlighting? What's a specific use case
you were targeting? (I'm sure there was one! I just see too many of us
speculating about it.)

~~~
timclemans
The messages were by dispatchers. I'll give you an example, shortly after the
center was no longer allowed to the app, someone called 911 and claimed his
car had been shot. A dispatcher put it down as rock hit the car. A higher up
told me that had my app been in used the Chief Dispatcher would have been
alerted because they all had keywords for shot, shooting, etc. This is the
only tool to see all messages for everything at once. I even asked them if
they would like to hide messages and they said no.

~~~
x1798DE
Hey, sorry to derail, but I've been meaning to get back in touch with you,
totally weird to see you here. Email me at x1799faa@gmail.com and I'll
explain.

------
squidfood
Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have
a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the
process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the
process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that
horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").

~~~
martin1975
Because employers love hiring people for the purposes of berating them until
they blow up, then firing them when they realize they screwed up and try to
play ball.

That is a very perverse theory that can be disproved by another techie who has
lasted there longer than 6 months.

It appears the programmer failed to realize how srructured and protocol driven
the SPD is, #1, and #2, his tact was atrocious, which is probably what got him
fired.

It's happened to me and to the best of us, failure to gauge the pulse of the
environment... He seems very talented, however just a really poor fit for SPD.
He will be much happier elsewhere.

edit for Azkar: then that's what I call a poor fit, without blaming myself or
the employer.

~~~
timclemans206
I was not fired and they asked me to say. But I was too unhappy and going
crazy.

~~~
martin1975
I believe you. I've had it both ways - where I resigned...and when I was
fired.

------
pascalmemories
Unfortunately, policing culture is very territorial and operates at extreme
levels of testosterone fueled territory marking.

A tech-nerd (with possibly some autistic traits from the descriptions) is
never going to get along in that environment without someone seriously
watching over them. And whoever that is, will have some serious work to do in
order to get the best for the department.

Cops are trained to push peoples buttons and make them lose control. Tim seems
to have not seen the play coming and was fairly easily sideswiped before he
even got far off the ground.

It sounds like SPD are not up to the job - even though someone at least seemed
to be in the right direction when they hired Tim in the first place. If they
had been able to follow through with the right support, SPD could have been an
incredibly awesome exemplar of Policing and tech done right. To me, it sounds
like there are serious management problems with the department - this
situation would never have happened if people were properly competent.

Sadly, in my own experience, Policing and tech are never done terribly well.
It always ends up with the snoopers and intrusive abusers gaining more ground
and the things which really help keep people safer and more secure being
thrown in the ditch or run over completely.

~~~
buffportion
"Cops are trained to push peoples buttons and make them lose control"

They are? I could see why, say, detectives interviewing a suspect might use
that approach to try to get them to say something incriminating, but for
regular cops I would think their job is made much easier if the people they
interact with are calm.

~~~
woodman
That is not in their own interest though, the incentives aren't aligned with
the stated mission. Consider job security, advancement and cop culture.

~~~
CountSessine
That's a very cynical view of police.

~~~
15charlimit

      That's a very accurate view of most police.
    

Fixed it for you.

~~~
newjersey
Yes and it is for a good reason. Earlier today in New Jersey:

> A jury yesterday found Spolizino, 37, not guilty of death by auto and
> leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the death of 24-year-old Stephen
> Clifford on April 19, 2013. An aggravated manslaughter charge had been
> tossed earlier by the judge.

[http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/acquitted_jersey_...](http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/acquitted_jersey_city_cop_remaining_on_modified_du.html)

> Authorities said Spolizino was driving 60 miles per hour -- 35 MPH over the
> speed limit -- when his vehicle struck Clifford on Kennedy Boulevard. The
> state argued Spolizino caused Clifford's death through the recklessness of
> the speed at which he was driving.

> The jury disagreed.

> Video showed the pickup continue north on Kennedy Boulevard where it went
> through a red light at Montgomery Street before pulling over.

> The video then showed the pickup go into reverse and back up to Montgomery,
> the officer quickly dialed 911 and a witness said he saw the officer at the
> scene of the crash within five to 10 minutes of the impact.

> During the trial, Garrigan noted that Clifford was crossing against the
> green, implying that Clifford bore some of the responsibility. He also noted
> that speeding on Kennedy Boulevard is common.

[http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/jersey_city_polic...](http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/10/jersey_city_police_officer_michael_spolizino_not_g.html#incart_2box_hudson)

I don't have any insight into the case in particular but I really doubt the
outcome would have been the same if the person driving were not a police
officer.

In other news, the NJ police had choice words for Tarantino.

> The New Jersey State Policeman’s Benevolent Association has become the
> latest police organization to call for a boycott of Quentin Tarantino’s
> films, following the director’s participation in an anti-police brutality
> march in New York last weekend.

[...]

>“Quentin Tarantino needs to understand that as a public figure his voice is
one that people listen to,” Colligan’s statement continued. “He has an
obligation to be more responsible. This is not a movie, this is real life
where police officers lives are impacted by his words.”

[http://www.ew.com/article/2015/10/30/new-jersey-police-
quent...](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/10/30/new-jersey-police-quentin-
tarantino-boycott) (sorry for quoting ew, you don't have to click the link)

You know what impacts police officers' credibility more than a director's
words? The benches of police officers that filled up in solidarity of a police
officer who doesn't deny that he was behind the wheel of a car in a hit and
run case driving 60 miles per hour on a 35 miles per hour area. Would any of
the police officers be there if it was... I don't know... an undocumented
immigrant without a license or an out of state driver or anyone who was not a
police officer?

------
danso
I have to say...I'm very impressed that he lasted that long. And I think
credit has to be given to both Clemans and the Seattle PD...Clemans,
obviously, for putting his skill and ingenuity toward the public good. But
also, to the police for not only being open to change, but willingly bringing
in someone who so openly antagonized them. Given the amount of political ego
in most police organizations...6 months of collaboration is pretty
astonishing.

Even if the Seattle PD were at fault, the onus is on them to either adopt or
ignore what Tim has done for them...sometimes the attention and public
scrutiny is enough to change things, so I wouldn't see Tim's departure as the
end of it. It doesn't have to be be, at least, and hopefully other Seattle
civic hackers have been inspired by his work.

------
krapp
Also in the Seattle Times[0], an interesting quote, apparently by Clemans:

    
    
        “Basically, it all went to hell,” said Clemans, describing his 
        relationship with the department. “The problem is [the department] 
        wants to use technology, but it wants to have vendors who build 
        these large systems that cost a lot of money and are hard to implement. 
    
        I want things to go fast and I’ve been working with people 
        who realize government moves slowly.” 
    

It seems Clemans got frustrated by the inefficiencies of bureaucracy, and the
department got fed up with his disruptive attitude.

[0][http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/spd-tech-officer-
re...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/spd-tech-officer-resigns-
resumes-public-records-requests/)

~~~
timclemans
The department didn't get rid of me. They tried to keep me from resigning.

~~~
krapp
Fair enough.

------
jason_slack
Let's talk about some of the things he did. The highlighting of the most
important calls seems useful, but the article also mentioned he developed
"blurring of anything that moves in police footage". What is the benefit of
this?

~~~
jhou2
It's for privacy. Before this feature, the SPD had someone manually blur out
faces to protect privacy. The burden this placed on police resources was a
large factor in why they didn't want to or couldn't comply with public records
requests.

~~~
jason_slack
hmm, I thought arrest was public....That makes sense now about the privacy.
Thank you for clarifying.

------
tankerdude
Don't get it. This whole thing could have been solved in a 5 minute review
with folks. Maybe they want more than just that 1 feature?

Either way, installing _any_ software, even those that only do a read (how
does he even know that that's all it did?) to a mission critical piece must
always be vetted, end of story. Heck, even a _read_ could take down the system
if it did lots of JOINs a slower DB, etc.

Just because you can get something running doesn't mean you're a systems
engineer.

------
ck2
Wish I was even half as smart and half as brave as him, wow

------
fapjacks
"I'm gonna PDR the shit out of you!" is probably my favorite part of that
whole article.

~~~
timclemans206
Yep wanna not improve SPD fine but I'm going to showcase everything you and
your people do. You're be forced to improve once the media gets ahold of the
mistakes being made.

------
demian
Organizational Software is, in essence, bureaucratic automation. And if you
try to impose bureaucracy, control, tracking and/or regulaiton inside a deeply
"brotherly" organization, you are bound to have issues.

