Uber Investor Suggests Addressing Police Killings With an App (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader write: To address the problem of motorists killed by police officers, Shervin Pishevar, the Iranian-born VC who backed Uber, is suggesting an app that allows police officers to communicate with motorists during traffic stops without either party leaving their vehicles. USA Today reports that Pishevar "says he has slept very little in the past 48 hours as he seeks input from law enforcement, software engineers and designers, lawmakers and from community members," and he's now working with former New York City police commissioner. Engadget has criticized Pishevar's proposal, writing "Dear Silicon Valley, not everything can be solved with apps."

At midnight on Friday, Uber also shut down their service for one minute "to create a moment of reflection for the Uber Community,", and also added a peace sign to their app, encouraging its users to "take a moment to think about what we can do to help," and changed the countdown for the arrival of a car into the amount of time left "to reflect on gun violence".

Comments

More than one problem

[SeattleLawGuy]

The problem is how the police are chosen and trained.

No. There is more than one problem. That is sometimes one of the problems, because it is not like that is uniform either.

If people broke laws less, we would also have less need for police. So having too many laws is also a problem.

So is breaking the laws, and anything that incentivizes people to break the laws.

So is mistreating criminal suspects in ways which may be as you are trained to do, but which will cause their entire community to distrust police officers forever.

So is abuse of alcohol and inhibited judgment.

So is any society where the punishment for a simple misdemeanor includes not being able to rent an apartment.

So is a police culture where reporting a concern about a fellow officer's behavior makes you a pariah.

So is a society where police lives are at risk at every traffic stop.

It's not just one problem.