Author: Keith Griffith for Dailymail.com
Published: May 28, 2021 10:24 EST | Updated: May 28, 2021 11:36 EST
Citizen CEO and founder Andrew Frame is under fire for offering a reward for the wrong head in Southern California
After the CEO's internal comments were leaked in a new report, the crime tracking and neighborhood surveillance app Citizen is facing a series of controversial new reviews.
CEO Andrew Frame made crazy comments in the company's Slack chat on May 15 after he offered a reward of $30,000 to a homeless person, wrongly accusing him of arson in a wildfire in Los Angeles.
The police subsequently released the man on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and arrested and charged another homeless person, 48-year-old Ramon Rodriguez-but before that, Frame asked the Los Angeles Citizen users pushed photos of the wrong suspect, urging them to hunt him down.
'name? What is it? ! Publish all information," Frame wrote in a Slack chat, according to Vice interviewed former employees and obtained internal records.
"Find this fuck," he told them. "Let's catch this guy before midnight."
'Breaking news. This guy is a demon. Catch him," the frame said.'Before midnight! @#! We hate this guy. Catch him.'
The app issued a warning to users in Southern California last Saturday, but included a photo of a homeless person, Devon Hilton (pictured), who was later released by the police due to insufficient evidence.
Frame initially set the bounty at $10,000, but getting crazy, he increased it to $20,000 and then $30,000.
'approach him. 30k Let us get him. There is nowhere to escape. Let's increase. 30k," Frame said.'Notify all pulls. Blast to all pulls.
The Los Angeles Fire Department announced over the weekend that it had arrested another 48-year-old homeless, Ramon Rodriguez, on suspicion of the fire.
"Citizens are broadcasting: The hunt for arsonists continues," the notice told 848,816 citizen users in Los Angeles. "We are now offering a reward of $30,000 for any information that directly led to his arrest tonight. Tap to join the real-time search.
In a chat room with Frame, a Citizen employee pointed out that the company violated its terms of service, which prohibits "posting specific information that can identify the parties involved in the incident"-but according to Vice, the complaint was ignored.
A citizen spokesperson told DailyMail.com on Friday: “Citizen’s mission is to make the world safer. When a bush fire broke out in Pacific Palisades earlier this month, our purpose was to ensure the safety of our Los Angeles users and order an evacuation. And understand the situation when the house is destroyed.
"Officials marked the fire as an act of arson. Unfortunately, the on-the-spot reminder of a related person provided by the Los Angeles Police Department Sheriff was used to replace the official confirmation by the public safety agency." We deeply regret our mistakes. And we are working hard to improve our internal processes to prevent this from happening again," the spokesperson added.
The flames of a bush fire in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on May 15
The new report also revealed that Citizen uses paid "street teams" to impersonate ordinary users, and they go out to film events to encourage more active user participation.
Earlier this month, one such team even intervened to rescue a lost boy with autism in the Bronx.
When they found the boy at Target and convinced him to enter their car so they could take him back to his family, the street team conducted a live broadcast-some viewers believed that the boy entering the car with random strangers caused an alarm.
"In the case of the missing boy in the Bronx earlier this month, we heard that countless members of the civic community in New York City-mothers, teachers and other well-meaning people-took the initiative to help find him. A citizen spokesperson A statement told DailyMail.com that it was the collective efforts of the civic community that brought the boy home.
Citizen did not publicly acknowledge the existence of its street team, but told DailyMail.com: “From time to time, we set up temporary teams in some cities where Citizen can use it to demonstrate how the platform works and demonstrate responsible broadcasting practices—similar to The way social media platforms pay creators.
At the same time, it is reported that Citizen is abandoning its plan to establish a private security force to send to users in distress.
According to CBS News, Citizen ended its pilot program in Los Angeles on Tuesday and said it has no plans to launch similar services elsewhere.
Prior to this, a citizen spokesperson confirmed the pilot program to DailyMail.com last week, saying that it was testing the private security response of its own employees in Los Angeles, for example, if they wanted to be escorted home late at night.
Someone saw a mysterious civic brand patrol car wandering the streets of Los Angeles. The patrol car was recently associated with the private security company Los Angeles Professional Security Corporation (LAPS).
"This is a small 30-day test that has now been completed," a Citizen spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch of the plan. "We have no plans to establish our own private security forces, nor do we have an ongoing relationship with LAPS."
In recent days, someone saw a mysterious Citizen brand "private patrol car" wandering in Los Angeles. The company said it is piloting private security forces to respond to user requests
The Citizen app was first released in 2016 and it relies on police scanner traffic and user reports (including user-submitted videos) to map reports of nearby crimes and police responses
The Citizen app was first released in 2016 and was called Vigilante at the time. It was popular in major cities as a way to track crimes nearby. It is currently available in about 20 major cities.
The app relies on police scanner traffic and user reports (including user-submitted videos) to map reports of nearby crimes and police responses.
The pilot program to provide private security was disclosed for the first time in an internal email leaked to the motherboard last week.
Internal emails described by Motherboard indicate that the new pilot project is part of an ambitious project aimed at extending the company's mission from reporting crime to combating crime.
"The broad master plan is to establish a privatized secondary emergency response network," a former citizen employee told the media.
The product was described as a "security response" in internal emails, and it would have Citizen send a car with a private security force to the app user who requested help.
One of the emails claimed that Citizen had proposed a security response service to the top of the Los Angeles Police Department and received a warm response.
The email said that the Los Angeles Police Department was hit by budget cuts last year, its staffing was at its lowest level in 12 years, property crime was rampant, and it was difficult to respond to these types of calls.
The application is currently available in about 20 cities, and it seems that it is considering the creation of a "privatized secondary emergency response network" to significantly expand it to actively combat crime
Citizen has provided a personal security subscription product called "Protect" for $20 a month, which allows Citizen employees to monitor the user's location during activities and can stream videos to Citizen agents when triggered by a security word .
The service is positioned as a "digital bodyguard" and promotes "immediate emergency response to your exact location" in case of trouble.
In addition to LAPS, the email also indicated that Citizen is working on a pilot program with the private security company Securitas.
An email described a test conducted by a Citizen employee in Los Angeles who called a security guard from Securitas to escort her for a cup of coffee.
The email stated that the user and agent experience needs to be improved, and Securitas is reviewing the results to make adjustments.
Although its popularity has soared with the surge in violent crime in many cities, the Citizen app has also attracted criticism, including accusations that it promotes bigotry and even racism.
The app was originally called Vigilante, and because of concerns that it would incentivize users to take the law into their own hands, it was removed from Apple's App Store and restarted under its current name.
On Friday, The Verge first reported that Citizen's CEO and founder Frame personally authorized an unorthodox $30,000 bounty to "hunt down" an arsonist - but spent the money on the wrong person.
The app issued a warning to users in Southern California last Saturday, but included a photo of a homeless person who was later released by the police due to insufficient evidence.
According to The Verge, Frame wrote in an internal message: "Let's find this person and completely activate the safety net."
'This is a great change from Citizen's return to active safety. We are not a news company. We are safe, and we make this heinous crime impossible to escape. This needs to be our mindset," the message added.
After the wrong identity was revealed, the company said in a statement that it "is actively working to improve our internal processes to ensure that this does not happen again."
"Our mission is to protect everyone, including the homeless," a citizen spokesperson told DailyMail.com on Friday.
“For example, when a fire in an apartment building in Queens displaced approximately 90 families last month, we sent a notice to every citizen user in New York City calling for action to donate to their fundraising page,” the spokesperson Talked about it.
"In the end, Citizen helped these families raise more than $300,000 to help them recover from this devastating event." This is an example of citizens as a force for good.
The following comments are unreviewed.
The views expressed in the above content are the views of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
We no longer accept comments on this article.
Published by United Press Limited
Part of "Daily Mail", "Sunday Mail" and Metro Media Group