Crime reporting app Citizen has had a pretty wild run in the past couple of weeks. Debuting rather inauspiciously as Vigilante back in 2016, the app was removed from Apple's store less than 48 hours after its first appearance. It relaunched the following spring as Citizen and remained just another competitor in the virtual Neighborhood Watch scene.
That all changed late last month. Citizen users and employees -- urged on by Citizen CEO Andrew Frame -- started a manhunt (with a $30,000 bounty) for an innocent homeless person Frame had decided was an arsonist. As the public was still digesting this news, Los Angeles residents spotted a Citizen-branded patrol car making the rounds. Shortly thereafter, current and former employees confirmed the company was interested in getting into the private security business with an eye on becoming more like cops and less like an informational app.
As all of this was going on, some hackers scraped Citizen's database of recordings and reports, providing a single source for nearly everything uploaded to Citizen, including recordings moderators had hidden from public view. It was also revealed Citizen's foray into public health had resulted in a leak of users' COVID status as well as other personal information.
The company began offering the service in Los Angeles last month as a pilot program. During the trial, the service, which included a company-branded squad car, was only available to company employees. For the service, Citizen partnered with a private firm called Los Angeles Professional Security, which describes itself as a provider of "subscription law enforcement."
But on Tuesday, Citizen ended the program, stating it has no plans to launch a similar service elsewhere.
"This was a small 30-day test that is now complete," a Citizen spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch. "We have no plans to launch our own private security force and no ongoing relationship with LAPS."
"The broad master plan was to create a privatized secondary emergency response network," one former Citizen employee told Motherboard. Motherboard granted multiple sources anonymity to protect them from retaliation from the company.
"It's been something discussed for a while but I personally never expected it to make it this far," another Citizen source told Motherboard.
So, this reversal seems to be a reversal, not simply the end of a test run. And if the company has no plans to launch a private security force, why waste the time and money equipping a squad car and sending personnel out to "patrol" Los Angeles? This sounds more like a plan being abandoned because the Overton Window didn't open quite as far as expected.
A snitch app called Citizen is angling for the position of Local Law Enforcement®. Going a step further than hotbeds of bigotry like Ring's Neighbors or Facebook-but-for-racism Nextdoor, Citizen is actually trying to create a private law enforcement agency that provides "security" and other services for app users.
A marauding cop-like patrol vehicle emblazoned with the Citizen logo (and some branding for another private security company) was spotted roaming Los Angeles last week. The desire to create a private cutout in public law enforcement space was confirmed by current and former Citizen employees, as well as documents shared with Motherboard and Joseph Cox.
It's not just theoretical. It appears some employees of this private company really want to convert Citizen into a law enforcement agency. (Supporters of this move may also contain members of the Los Angeles Police Department, which called Citizen's move towards patrolling the streets a "game changer.") Then there's this new twist, which indicates Citizen's partner in patrolling -- Los Angeles Professional Security Services -- really would prefer to be an actual law enforcement agency, rather than the private security company it actually is.
In a self-described “documentary” on the Los Angeles Professional Security YouTube, the company's CEO and founder James Caspari explains after detaining two tresspassers that the company wants the power to make arrests and take people to jail.
“We’re going to waste police resources because we can’t drive them to the police station,” he said. “The security guard manual says we have to wait and a peace officer has to take them. That’s just a waste. If we’ve already cleared it... why can’t we just take ‘em to jail?”
Flow my tears, the fake policeman said. Why? WHY?? Because you're a goddamn rent-a-cop. You're not the real thing. You don't get to start depriving people of freedom just because you're dressed in black cop-adjacent garb and employed by a private security firm. No one has granted you the right to arrest people because that's limited to publicly-funded government agencies that are (in theory) more accountable to taxpayers than a private company that only answers to paying customers.
"Private security has zero authority on a public space," he later laments.
Go be a cop then. If it's killing you that you can't violate rights as a private citizen, go get an actual cop job where you can violate rights on the taxpayers' dime. Sure, this seems a bit backwards but that's how it works. The government gets to do certain things with the implicit consent of the governed. Los Angeles citizens have not agreed to allowing private citizens to start throwing other private citizens into faux cop cars in order to take them to jail. What standard is LAPS applying to itself when it affects an arrest? There are rules in place, backed by the Constitution. And, while these rules may be violated with alarming frequency by government agencies, they're still rules. Private companies don't have to adhere to the Constitution. And that's why they shouldn't be getting into the business of violating the rights of others. (And, before certain commenters start trying to turn this statement into something about social media, no one's rights are violated when a company refuses to provide you a platform for expressing yourself.)
Going from bad to arguably worse, the CEO of a private security firm actually believes it's capable of responding to mental health calls with its staff of people who apparently couldn't cut it as real cops or first responders.
Caspari explains in the video that LAPS believes it can remove trespassers and respond to mental health calls. “We are in a position to respond in force to effectively anywhere in the city to remove any negative element that a client of ours is threatened with,” Caspari said in the video.
And even in its own video, which it had the chance to edit before publishing it, the private security company's employees are given the "what even the fuck" treatment by the partners Citizen and LAPS really want to have on board: the Los Angeles Police Department.
After searching an abandoned building, LAPS employees cuff the two people they find there and wait for the LAPD to arrive. Caspari explains this is all cool and legal: a "private person arrest" supported by California law. After lamenting the "waste of time" that is waiting for actual law enforcement to show up, he's greeted with LAPD officers wondering why the private security firm is patrolling abandoned buildings that appear to be outside of its contractual obligations with its customers.
At one point, the LAPD does turn up. A seemingly surprised LAPD officer asks Caspari, "Is that your normal protocol, you guys just go search the building?"
"On your own, or? Just curious, I've never dealt with you guys before," the LAPD officer continues.
It's a legitimate question. If the private security company wasn't asked by the owners (and "abandoned" suggests no real owner exits) to patrol the building, why the hell are they entering it? At that point, the security personnel are just as guilty of trespassing as the people they detained.
Since there are no good answers to that question, the CEO moves on to complain the LAPD doesn't have enough resources to harass the homeless, leaving people "pushing two shopping carts down the road" free to annoy Caspari.
If nothing else, Caspari has the right mindset for law enforcement. The people who should be rounded up first are hanging out in abandoned buildings or irritating the locals with their homelessness. Nothing in the video suggests the security firm is stumbling across serious or violent criminal activity that's not being handled by the LAPD. Instead, the CEO complains his company has its hands tied, unable to remove homeless people, trespassers, and the mentally ill from the street without having to bring the LAPD into it.
If the LAPD has to use its resources to handle more serious crime and leave this sort of "crime" unaddressed, good. But that's not an invitation for private companies to fill this perceived void. Providing security for paying clients is fine, but wanting to be a cop just so you can round up a bunch of non-threatening, non-violent people makes you worse than the actual cops. This is just a bunch of people cosplaying and wishing their cardboard props were real. And it's going to do serious damage to Los Angeles residents if companies like this continue to believe they should have the right to violate the rights of others.
