
What Two Programmers Have Revealed About Seattle Police Officers - aaronbrethorst
http://www.thestranger.com/news/feature/2015/05/06/22172178/what-two-programmers-have-revealed-so-far-about-seattle-police-officers-who-are-still-in-uniform
======
rmason
Why shouldn't these records be available for free, even better yet accessible
thru an API? Would the 'bad apples' still be able to operate in any area of
government if there was true transparency?

~~~
jbattle
I'm guessing because the records aren't all digital and there's some clerical
work needed to either digitize them or maybe do some redaction or editing to
make them suitable for release (e.g. I'd hope they would strip out social
security numbers if collected)

~~~
rmxt
Why aren't they all digital now, in 2015? Here's some brainstorming: have a
precinct or two run a trial where all field notes must be taken on a
department tablet. Have a field for sensitive info. This field is
automatically redacted in public releases. No paper notes. Any paper must be
scanned or photographed and OCR'd. Originals are kept, but digital copies must
be made.

My personal thoughts: I'd venture to say that all info would eventually get
tossed into the "sensitive field" as a matter of a slippery slope. I also
think that there's a conflict of interest in keeping notes that are "bad" over
"good" (easily retrievable, shareable, and legible). It's self-serving to have
physical paper notes. They can easily be "lost", "destroyed", and they only
exist in a physical form: an oversight official has to come to the physical
precinct house to retrieve the records.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>Why aren't they all digital now, in 2015?

Last time I was in a county office, the application they used was extremely
dated. It looked well over 15 years old. Many governments work with really
dated software with a skeleton IT crew that can barely keep even that working,
much less rewrite it.

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kelukelugames
This is incredible. Imagine if you can see local cops' complaint records just
like your neighbor's arrest records.

Downside is this might encourage more fake and petty complaints.

~~~
Zigurd
Everyone who sells products or interacts with the public has to deal with
"fake" and "petty." Cops don't need exceptional treatment.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure because cops don't deal with the public in the same way as, say, an Avon
representative. Attempts to blur this are doing cops an injustice. They are a
special case in almost every way.

~~~
angersock
I absolutely agree.

And that's why they should have fewer rights and more oversight than the Avon
lady.

The Avon lady has never burned an infant with a flashbang. Or shot a dog. Or
shot an owner. Or shot a homeless person. Or shot another Avon lady.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...or had to deal with violent offenders on a daily basis. Yes, different in
every way. It doesn't work to cherry-pick examples, you don't draw very good
conclusions from that.

~~~
rmxt
Do you think your median cop in the US actually deals with "violent offenders"
on a daily basis? If so, who defines what a "violent offender" is? (Hint: it's
probably the police officer him/herself, a pretty self-serving situation.) The
point in all of this is that we no longer have to rely on such inconsistent
and inaccurate first-hand definitions: body-cams, dash-cams and public access
records would allow for a re-evaluation of all such interactions. If only
police departments actually had the public's best interest in mind...

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I live in a college town, so maybe I have a biased sample. But yes, I do
believe so.

A suggestion: could you do what you need to do, if someone were looking over
your shoulder at all times? There is a chilling effect on good cops too - if
anything at all they say and do results in a personal lawsuit, they stop being
effective at all.

A ride-along some Friday night has been known to change the opinion of many a
critic. See what a cop has to deal with, no room for preconceived notions or
idealistic predictions.

As for the public interest - we don't want to live in a world without
policemen. There is a wide literature on that subject.

~~~
rmxt
I don't do my job with a gun or a mandate to maintain law and order. To
reiterate your earlier point: any comparison to any other job is an unfair
one. It doesn't matter how I would behave if someone were looking over my
shoulder, it only matters how much more insight and oversight the general
public would have into those who supposedly serve them. To be cliche: "With
great power comes great responsibility." We don't need to go on an in-person
ride along on Friday night: we can put cameras on them and let the whole of
posterity go on every ride-along.

Your point about a chilling effect on good cops due to lawsuits seems flimsy.
Potentially frivolous lawsuits won't be resource intensive because they would
have hard and fast evidence (video) for a prosecutor or jury to make a
decision on. Good cops that know they are good cops could act confidently,
reassured that their protocol-following actions are recorded. Citizens that
might otherwise be mouthy, physically resistant, or whatever else might behave
better knowing that the camera is watching. It really seems like a win-win for
all parties involved, except for the "bad apples" and their supporters.

Also, I don't suggest that we disband police forces. I do believe that
policing in the United States needs to be more "peace officer"-like rather
than SWAT-like. I feel that we are trending towards the latter.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Agreed. That all sounds good. I'm not sure about the 'good cops don't have
anything to fear' argument, because of course every time they restrain any
drunk, they have something to fear. Rich people hire lawyers; cops aren't
rich. Cops use intimidation to quell a drunk; if you can get them to stand
down and get their buddies to take them home, problem solved. The alternative
in this brave new world of cop-surveillance may be to arrest them all instead.

So it would change things.

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suprgeek
This is a perfect example of setting up a small community open source project
that helps.

Dump a lot of the info on github/etc (since it is public info)

Ask people's help with OCR & Digitization (as needed)

Get the community involved to find instances of Abuse etc

Hold the buggers accountable - A large portion of Cops are power tripping
bullies who think they are above the law

~~~
munificent
> Dump a lot of the info on github/etc (since it is public info)

This is a perfect example of needing to actually read the linked to article:

> COP considered dumping the raw data online for anyone to view, but decided
> against it because it would involve the publication of sensitive personal
> details—things like mental illness, drug addiction, or cases involving
> minors.

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Raphmedia
"How did two nerds come to hold SPD accountable?"

Could we stop calling qualified professionals "nerds"? One of them is an
independent cyber-security expert. I find it insulting. To me, nerd comes with
this definition: "an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person".

The journalist should be ashamed. What is this, high school?

Edit: I find very interesting that this post was upvoted to 20, downvoted to
10 and is now back to 15. It seem that not everyone is insulted by the term
"nerd" !

~~~
kiba
Nerd is a badge of pride. Nerd is less cooler than Geek. Nerd is more cooler
than Geeks.

Nerd can mean any social rank you want.

Just let it go.

~~~
cousin_it
I often hear that people should treat slurs as badges of pride, like "bastard"
in Game of Thrones. Is that strategy ever successful? Can you name any group
in history that managed to reclaim a slur? I can't, so that seems like a
losing strategy. The winning strategy is to come up with a better sounding
name for the group, and then marginalize anyone who keeps using the slur.

~~~
jessaustin
I think "queer" has been claimed. I haven't heard it used offensively in a
long time. [EDIT: I'm not in that group, so perhaps my impressions are skewed,
but twenty years ago I heard it all the time.]

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omg_ketchup
These guys don't even have a website! I instantly wanted to apply for a job.
This is the kind of work I love to see. Using public records to improve the
quality of life for people in their area, awesome.

~~~
pmocek
We do, but all that is there now is a single blog post: [http://seacop.org/on-
the-occasional-difference-between-polic...](http://seacop.org/on-the-
occasional-difference-between-police-statements-and-reality/)

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jqm
Regardless of police motivation, ethics or behavior, citizen oversight of
police activities just makes sense.

In my opinion there should be an officially instituted oversight board with
open meetings and elections in every municipality and county in the US. I'm
betting we would see a dramatic reduction in the problems caused by police and
might just see a drop in crime as well. The average citizen certainly doesn't
want police to be unable to do their jobs. But the concerns on accountability
and how the jobs are being done is growing.

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paulhauggis
"In 569 allegations of excessive or inappropriate use of force (arising from
363 incidents), only seven were sustained—meaning 99 percent of cases were
dismissed"

Anyone getting arrested and resisting will complain that it's "excessive
force" when the police use any sort of force to arrest them. If you talk to
any cop working right now, they will tell you this. This is why 99% don't see
the light of day.

"The two Seattle residents are now the closest thing the city has to a
civilian police-oversight board"

If this is even close to the truth, it's scary. They see numbers and text on a
report. Nothing is in context to the situation that happened. This is why
there are professional police review boards dedicated to investigating these
matters...and we don't have armchair/twitter warriors making important
decisions like this.

"Then, in February 2011, Rachner met Mocek at an SPD town hall meeting. Mocek
had had his own run-in with police. In 2009, security agents at Albuquerque
Airport threw him in a jail cell for lacking identification and causing a
disturbance. Mocek challenged the misdemeanor charges against him and, like
Rachner, won. Their run-ins and legal battles with security agencies
galvanized them, they said, to hold police accountable for mistakes and
abuses."

So how is upholding the law, "abuse"????

"the largest public union in the state"

This entire article is about railing against the police, yet the unions are
never mentioned as part of the problem. Very interesting indeed.

~~~
btilly
_" Then, in February 2011, Rachner met Mocek at an SPD town hall meeting.
Mocek had had his own run-in with police. In 2009, security agents at
Albuquerque Airport threw him in a jail cell for lacking identification and
causing a disturbance. Mocek challenged the misdemeanor charges against him
and, like Rachner, won. Their run-ins and legal battles with security agencies
galvanized them, they said, to hold police accountable for mistakes and
abuses."_

 _So how is upholding the law, "abuse"???_

The fact that both won in court against the police for tens of thousands of
dollars is strong evidence that what the police did to them really was abuse.
And the police were doing something other than upholding the law.

The fact that the police denied having video evidence that they in fact did
have (which did not support their case) is further evidence that the police
were simply in the wrong.

And finally, the fact that the "professional police review board" did not flag
this as something that needs fixing is strong evidence that the review process
does not, in fact, work.

~~~
pmocek
I'm one of the subjects of the article. Regarding the 2009 incident at ABQ: I
was acquitted of all criminal charges by a jury in 2011. The trial ran two
days, during which I did not testify and presented no evidence. Bizarrely, the
prosecution presented the [video I made of the
incident]([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc5DBUK1K8M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc5DBUK1K8M))
(that he police erased and I recovered) as evidence against me. The jury
deliberated just one hour to reach their decision.

Later that year, I filed a related civil rights lawsuit. March of this year,
the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on dismissal of that suit.
There's no set timeline for a response from the court.

For details, see: \- [FAQ: State of New Mexico v. Phillip
Mocek]([http://papersplease.org/wp/mocek/](http://papersplease.org/wp/mocek/))
\- [FAQ: Phillip Mocek v. Albuquerque et
al.]([http://papersplease.org/wp/mocek2/](http://papersplease.org/wp/mocek2/))

