“Duped”: How One Atlanta Cop Secretly Shilled for Police Tech

When the city of Seattle contacted Fusus one of the nation s leading police surveillance tech companies in a company exec did more than just send over a brochure he offered to connect Seattle with a peer in Atlanta s police department who was familiar with the company s products This kicked off months of communication between Claudia Gross-Shader a director in Seattle s city auditor s office Marshall Freeman who was introduced as the deputy chief administrative officer of the Atlanta Police Department and other Seattle executives Seattle was hoping that Fusus s Connect system which ties together license plate readers community cameras and privately owned cameras into a single surveillance platform could help them combat retail theft The next year after a Seattle Police Department project manager visited Atlanta to see the system in action Fusus sealed the deal Seattle signed a contract for Connect Seattle at an estimated price tag of million But what Gross-Shader and the rest of her colleagues in Seattle didn t know until The Intercept called with questions was that Freeman was wearing two hats the whole time they were talking The APD official was not only a consultant for Fusus he was also a board member and owner of a small share of the company that could be worth millions He never disclosed that to me Gross-Shader informed The Intercept after hearing about Freeman s involvement with the company She noted everyone in Seattle who spoke with him was duped and that knowing about his role would have affected our procurement decision An Intercept examination based on populace documents and a City of Atlanta ethics study has uncovered that Freeman didn t disclose his role with Fusus in conversations with at least other cities during a period spanning at least two years and at least nine of those cities went on to make or amend millions of dollars worth of contracts with Axon Fusus the company s name since Axon the company behind the Taser and a major vendor of bodyworn cameras and other police surveillance systems purchased Fusus last year Atlanta s ethics assessment which began in March and concluded in May of this year was prompted by email queries and reporting from the Atlanta Group Press Collective a local digital outlet Investigators discovered that Freeman s conversations with other cities his undisclosed position on the board his stake in the company and his appearances at citizens events about Fusus application violated the city s general employee laws regarding disclosure and use of city property and also created an appearance of impropriety Freeman is appealing the decision But the Atlanta study despite taking months to complete did not cover the full extent of Freeman s events It did not follow-up to see whether the cities that Freeman spoke with went on to buy Fusus products did not inform the officers he visited or spoke with about his dual roles failed to turn up multiple Axon Fusus events around the country where Freeman spoke and missed the fact that Freeman was a director on Fusus s main governing board Neither Freeman his attorney Joe Siegelman nor Axon Fusus responded to queries from the Intercept Freeman informed Atlanta ethics investigators that he stopped consulting with the company after Axon s purchase of Fusus in January He did this he stated investigators to avoid conflicts of interest because Axon has contracts with the city of Atlanta But community documents show that Freeman has served on the company s board as a director since at least January of and remained in that position until the the bulk in recent months available filings dated June of this year Screenshot from Axon's video stream of its Axon Week keynote on April Screenshot That means Freeman was on the company s board for example when he spoke at Axon Week on April in Phoenix Introduced by company CEO Rick Smith as an APD official and a wonderful partner with us over the years Freeman s name flashed across a huge screen I m proud to be here representing the men and women of the Atlanta Police Department he advised attendees Axon has been such a trusted partner in our journey to modern inhabitants safety After concluding his remarks the two embrace and Smith says It s been a great relationship Freeman informed investigators that he didn t think his work with Fusus presented a conflict of interest before Axon acquired the company because the City of Atlanta did not contract directly with Fusus and instead relied on the city s private police foundation where he worked before joining the city to purchase the company s instrument Atlanta began progressing its Connect system using Fusus and other hardware in and has since become what a tech publication would later call the majority surveilled city in the United States The ethics document in a seeming misunderstanding of inhabitants filings identified Freeman as serving on the board only in its Virginia and Florida-based subsidiaries But filings in those states and seven more show that Freeman is a director of Fusus itself which continues to operate with its own board of directors even after the Axon acquisition The Intercept discovered that cities that expanded or created contracts involving Axon Fusus s signature Connect systems and who also spoke with Freeman include Seattle New York City Sacramento Savannah Georgia Springfield Illinois Omaha Nebraska and Birmingham Alabama The exact value of these contracts is laborious to pin down because chosen cities do not publish their contracting material and others did not itemize the portion of the contract linked to Fusus s Real-Time Crime Center equipment The financial impact of Freeman s enthusiastic testimonials about the Connect system and Fusus generally at events in which he was billed as an Atlanta police official with hundreds of police departments and cities in attendance is also demanding to quantify New York City Police Department detective Joseph Raffaele emailed Freeman on September telling him the department was considering purchasing Fusus amenity We would appreciate your opinion on Fusus Raffaele continued If you don t mind please fill in the attached excel spreadsheet and email it back to me The NYPD just would like a gauge of how good Fusus is Their customer amenity and any general issues you may have had He then forwarded his response to Fusus CEO Christopher Lindenau Less than two hours later Freeman filled out and returned the spreadsheet adding in an email to Raffaele As you will note from my responses we are HUGE fans of Fusus and our officers and investigators rely on Fusus around the clock every day It would be impossible for us to be as effective without it He then forwarded his response to Fusus CEO Christopher Lindenau who replied Thank you sir All references to such emails in this story come from the Atlanta ethics office s record The Intercept has obtained a recording of Atlanta ethics investigators interviewing Freeman on June of last year At one point Freeman says We share with other cities all the time how we utilize the equipment So it s not being an advocate for Fusus saying You should buy this I never did that Freeman described investigators that Atlanta s system using Fusus is what America is looking to mimic adding There s Connect everywhere In May of last year New York City Mayor Eric Adams reported a million contract with Fusus Connect New York now has nearly general and privately owned cameras linked to the city s surveillance system The NYPD did not reply to a request for comment from the Intercept Not everyone in New York sees the new surveillance system as the home run Adams called it in his press conference announcing the contract This silent expansion of surveillance casts a long shadow over our citizens housing communities places that should feel like home not a monitored zone Council Member Shahana Hanif who urged about the Fusus system in a city council meeting last year recounted the Intercept We must demand full disclosure democratic oversight and a halt to unchecked policing embedded within our basic infrastructure Freeman followed the same playbook when the police in Sacramento got in touch Sacramento Police Department Lt Jason Start emailed Freeman on September letting him know Fusus society safety adviser Jim Macedo had suggested contacting him because the department was upgrading hardware and application in their surveillance system according to the Atlanta ethics study I was the purchaser of Fusus and directed much of this from my end Freeman wrote back It would likely make sense for us to have an initial chat He was referring to his previous role as COO of the Atlanta Police Foundation where Freeman oversaw the private organization s purchase of Fusus system on behalf of the city before starting work at APD in January Several months after his first email to Freeman Start wrote in another email that he planned to visit Atlanta on November with a group of six or seven Less than a year later in October Sacramento signed a contract with Fusus according to the Sacramento Bee When The Intercept reached Start on the phone he stated he had retired and hung up The department declined to comment Connect Sacramento now has about cameras linked to the city s surveillance system In Georgia several hours southeast of Atlanta Savannah IT Project Manager Jacque Fountain emailed Freeman August referring to a conversation the two had the day before and how the Savannah PD would like to implement Fusus Within two months in October the city communicated a contract worth a year with the company The contract was renewed in February Reached on the phone Fountain mentioned she was not aware of Freeman s ties with Fusus She referred The Intercept to the city s populace information office who didn t answer queries about the Atlanta police official s communication with the city Savannah now has more than cameras linked to the city s surveillance system In Springfield the capital of Illinois Fusus society safety adviser Jack Howard emailed Assistant Chief Joshua Stuenkel on February introducing Freeman as a long-time partner of the company and explaining his former role at the police foundation The Springfield City Council approved a million contract in November allocating money to the police department that includes Fusus s services It is unclear how much of the contract will go to the city s Real-Time Crime Center Stuenkel narrated The Intercept I don t recall meeting with Freeman We didn t use him I think we re done On January of last year retired Omaha Police Department Lt James Pauly emailed Freeman telling him he was honored that you allowed Fusus to share your information with us Fusus had been registered with Nebraska s secretary of state since the year before with Freeman listed as a director Reached on his cellphone Pauly commented You would think that would be a conflict of interest before directing The Intercept to the Omaha Police Department who didn t respond to a query The city entered into a million -year contract in August which included Fusus system for its Connect system Seattle is at this time considering a million expansion to its Fusus-powered surveillance system four area meetings on the proposal were scheduled in August Seattle s Surveillance Advisory Working Group which is authorized by city law to evaluate city surveillance contracts and their foreseen impact on issues such as civil rights and civil liberties produced a review in July of last year with five of six members opposing the Connect Seattle plan Their concerns ranged from disparate impacts on minority communities to a lack of specific information on the innovation Ren Peters who was co-chair of the group at the time and works at AI chipmaker NVIDIA explained the city ignored his group s account At one city council meeting last year a police official got several hours to make a presentation on the proposed surveillance system while Peters was given just one minute of community comment despite his group s official watchdog role When described about Freeman s role in communicating to Seattle about Fusus Peters announced If we had had that information there would have been a lot more people at city council meetings and demonstrations against the proposal Gross-Shader highlighted the difference between sharing information with peers and a salesperson If you re a peer jurisdiction talking to someone from another peer jurisdiction you assume you re speaking to another populace servant she mentioned Not an agent of a for-profit corporation He s trusted and it was a betrayal of that trust because Seattle employees thought he was a citizens servant she added It s disturbing that a population servant would do that and that a tech company would not disclose the relationship Gross-Shader also noted that the city had not seen research demonstrating the ability of Fusus s system to play a considerable role in reducing retail theft the issue that originally brought her to look into the company In the absence of rigorous evaluations it s a practical matter for jurisdictions she mentioned You weigh the experience of other jurisdictions But if somebody has undisclosed financial interests how can we trust what they offer as their experience The post Duped How One Atlanta Cop Secretly Shilled for Police Tech appeared first on The Intercept