By Jonathan Berryman, CNN
Washington (CNN) -- Reporting
police brutality could just be a swipe away.
That's the motivation behind
SWAT, a new app designed by college students Joe Gruenbaum and Brandon Anderson
to counter excessive uses of force by police officers.
The app, which its creators
would like to release by spring, will give witnesses of a police incident the
ability to live-stream video from their smartphones to SWAT's secure servers.
Once a video is on the servers, the team at SWAT can forward a copy to
authorities, protecting witness recordings from possible destruction or seizure
during the incident.
This might sound illegal, but
it isn't. While some states have implemented restrictions on public audio
recordings (most notably Illinois), no state in the U.S. prohibits recording
video of the police in a public place.
"Something like a million
criminal cases are compromised each year in the United States because people
don't know their rights when it comes to their interactions with the
police," Gruenbaum said in an interview with CNN. "And that includes
the right to record the police."
The live-streaming function is
step one of the SWAT process. In addition to recording secure video, a SWAT
user will be able to file a police report in seconds. The app will generate a
form, send the report to a nearby department with proper jurisdiction, and
provide users with a summary of their local rights. "We want to make sure
that people understand completely their protections, constitutionally and
legally, when they're interacting with the police," Gruenbaum said.
The inspiration for the app
comes from what happened in Ferguson, Missouri this year, as well as from
Anderson's personal experience. A former U.S. Army satellite engineer, Anderson
told CNN his partner died from injuries sustained during a confrontation with
police.
"I lost my partner to
police brutality, and the cops got away with it because of a lack of
evidence," Anderson said.
Anderson became a civil rights
activist working with organizations such as the Center for the Study of Social
Policy and Georgetown University's Center for Social Justice.
He helped organize a conference
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom. Gruenbaum reached out to him after seeing one of his Facebook posts:
their first conversation sparked a philosophical dialogue and eventually a
strong friendship.
"We had very intense
debates...concerning race, racial politics, and spaces of discourse for people
of color," Gruenbaum reflected. "Then Ferguson happened."
"It turned into a
conversation about solutions," Anderson said. "We saw a problem...so
we invented SWAT."
At present, the app is still
being developed, but the founders have a long-term vision in place. As app users
document incidents over time, the team at SWAT plans to compile the relevant
data into a format that can be made available to local governments -- a process
that will require expanding their staff. Gruenbaum and Anderson already manage
a startup of ten people, including product designers and marketing strategists,
and they're looking to grow quickly.
"What we need are people
who are interested in helping to create this app," Anderson said.
