Resources

A database containing several thousand data points on over 3,000 city and local police departments and sheriffs’ offices nationwide, allows citizens, journalists, and academics to review details about the technologies police are deploying, and provides a resource to check what devices and systems have been purchased locally. Built using crowdsourcing and data journalism over the last 18 months, the Atlas of Surveillance documents the alarming increase in the use of unchecked high-tech tools that collect biometric records, photos, and videos of people in their communities, locate and track them via their cell phones, and purport to predict where crimes will be committed.

Across the country, police unions have written contracts and laws that make it almost impossible to hold police accountable. We reviewed police union contracts in nearly 600 cities and “Police Bill of Rights” laws in 20 states. Learn how police unions and police Bills of Rights create obstacles and how they look in your state.

The Advisory Circular is a network of twitter bots posting in real-time whenever they detect aircraft flying in circles over cities around the world, including Los Angeles, Baltimore, Portland, Minneapolis, and London. Because they use an uncensored source of data, the bots also record police, FBI, DHS, DEA, CBP, and military aircraft. They look for circles because it means an aircraft is doing something instead of going somewhere. If you’ve ever asked “what is that helicopter/plane?” there’s a good chance these bots can answer your question—even if it’s an advanced military surveillance plane.

Campaign Zero reviewed the use of force policies of America’s 100 largest city police departments to determine whether they include meaningful protections against police violence.

Since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust, from cheating on overtime to unjustified shootings. But The Washington Post has found that departments have been forced to reinstate more than 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts.

After New York state repealed a law that kept police disciplinary records secret, ProPublica sought records from the civilian board that investigates complaints by the public about New York City police officers. The board provided us with the closed cases of every active-duty police officer who had at least one substantiated allegation against them. The records span decades, from September 1985 to January 2020. We have created a database of complaints that can be searched by name or browsed by precinct or nature of the allegations.

This list is by no means comprehensive. It was compiled by the volunteers at HEARD over a span of several years and last updated in June 2020. HEARD has been working tirelessly to bring an end police brutality against deaf/disabled people. HEARD created this English & Spanish Log of Police Violence Against Deaf People, and we are looking to collect more stories of police brutality against deaf/disabled people. If you want to add your or another person story to this list, please email us at hearddc@gmail.com.

An interactive map tool of school police in the Chicago area. The “heat map” uses colors to show which schools & areas have officers assigned to them with the most misconduct complaints on their record.

The Database for Police Abolition (D4PA) is a database-in-progress tracking proposals under consideration by decision-makers that would: 1) Defund and disarm police departments, 2) Diminish the role of policing in communities, and 3) Empower alternative visions for public safety. The proposals are compatible with a view “towards the horizon of abolition,” and avoid contributing to the legitimacy of policing as an institution for community safety.