Today the New York Civil Liberties Union is releasing a free smartphone app that will allow users to record and report interactions with the police and submit them directly to the organization in real time. The app, called Stop & Frisk Watch, is available in English and Spanish-language versions for Android users; an iPhone version will be released later this summer. "We wanted to empower people to have a tool to fight back against discriminatory policing and this seemed like the easiest way to do that," NYCLU's communication director Jennifer Carnig says.
Developed by Jason Van Anden, the man behind last year's protester-friendly I'm Getting Arrested app, Stop & Frisk Watch is equally as simple to use. There are three main features: Record, Listen, and Report. Record allows the user to take video of the incident that is immediately sent to the NYCLU. Listen broadcasts the phone's location to other users and prompts a text alert when people in their vicinity are being stopped by the police, and Report allows the user to describe the encounter they witnessed. We were able to use every function besides Listen (there are no other users at the moment), and all worked smoothly.
The app's settings also allow the user to input their name, phone number, and email, but a disclaimer warns, "There may be situations where the NYCLU may be legally required to disclose this information, such as when the NYCLU receives a subpoena." Carnig says the NYCLU will be "encouraging app users to include their personal information so we can follow up with them if we need to, but we won’t be tracking people down if they wish their identity to remain anonymous."
That concern is a real one, especially considering that the Manhattan DA's office has subpoenaed Twitter accounts of Occupy Wall Street protesters. Will authorities be able to identify a phone based on information anonymously transmitted to the NYCLU? "No," Van Anden says. "Not that I know of."
Stop & Frisk Watch also warns users to "Remain a safe distance from any police encounter you are documenting so that you do not physically interfere with the police activity." Carnig tells us, "The app is intended for use by people witnessing a police encounter, not by individuals who are the subject of a police stop," noting that reports can always be filed after the fact.
Our only complaint was that the app doesn't use the GPS in your phone to fill in the "location" of the encounter for you on the survey. "That'll be version 1.2," Van Anden promises, before pointing out that if you do choose to share your location in the Settings menu, your exact location is provided to the NYCLU when you record a video. "We didn't want to be overly reliant on the GPS in case something went wrong." Van Anden also says that if you lose service while using the app, the information is saved until it can be transmitted.
As of February of this year, 49% of all cellphone users in the U.S. use smartphones, and a majority of those are Androids. According to a Pew study released in 2011, blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to use their cell phones for "non-voice applications" like recording videos, downloading apps, or taking photos.
They're also more likely to be stopped by the police: more than 86% of the record 684,330 people stopped and frisked by the NYPD in 2011 were black or Latino, and 41% of the total were black or Latino men aged 14-24. (That record is on pace to be broken again in 2012.) The Pew study indicates that 66% of cellphone users aged 18-34 use smartphones, and of 18-29 year olds earning less than $30K per year, 39% own a smartphone.
"We are working with community groups, labor unions, social justice organizations, elected officials and a vast network of New Yorkers who care deeply about the stop-and-frisk epidemic," Carnig says, "so we are confident that news of our tool will reach communities that have the most to gain from using it." The organization also plans to promote the app during a Father's Day march protesting stop-and-frisk abuse.
As for what the organization will do with the data, Carnig says that the NYCLU plans to "use the videos we receive to put a face on what stop-and-frisk really looks like and to highlight how unjustified stops erode trust between the community and the police," and that the information stored in the reports "will be used in press work, to lobby public officials, in public education, in advocacy and potentially in litigation."
Van Anden, who lives in City Council Member and fierce stop-and-frisk critic Jumaane Williams' district in Flatbush, says he's seen the effects of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program in his neighborhood.
While waiting for the train at the Newkirk Plaza station a few months ago, Van Aden saw a black teenager "crying his eyes out with his head down." A police officer was following him and demanded he empty his pockets. "The kid said he was just at his grandmothers, and more police showed up, and it was clear the kid had nothing on him," Van Anden says. "They eventually just left him alone."
"That hit home," Van Anden says. "That kid on the platform—he's never going to talk to the police again. My best case scenario for this app is that it pushes the police to focus on more positive ways to interact with the community. I'd prefer for that kid to like the police."
