For Black Americans, getting pulled over by police can be a more than terrifying experience, particularly when alone and other witnesses are out of sight. Mbye Njie said he founded the Legal Equalizer app to add a layer of protection for drivers and to hold officers accountable by recording interactions and even dialing-in witnesses.
“That’s the goal of it, right, is to change behavior and so that if a police officer pulls you [over] for speeding, legitimately, cool. Give me my ticket, let me get on. Let’s not ask questions about where I’m going, where I’ve been, what I’m doing. Let’s not hold people longer,” Njie told Cheddar.
To get going on the app, five contacts are linked and will receive notifications to tune in to a live Zoom call of the police stop. A user can simply use their voice to activate the app or just hit a button.
Recording police interactions is also an available feature in the app. While they vary across the 50 states, Njie said laws from each have also been added into the app’s features because, in many instances, people are unaware of their rights.
“As long as they know people are watching them, hopefully then when they start pulling people over, then it’s for the reason they pulled them over and not for any other excuses or anything that can escalate to something more tragic,” Njie said.
Holding Police Accountable
When it comes to police accountability, with enough data collected from the stops, according to the Legal Equalizer founder, the app will be able to compile a background on officers who are targeting specific groups.
To make the app helpful for both drivers and authorities, Njie asked police departments across the country, “What do you want us to do when you pull us over?”
“Most of the police chiefs I’ve spoken to love it because they say, 'We do want our officer recorded because if we trained them properly and we did things properly, then this is exactly what we need,'” Njie added.
Though Njie said he started the app after personal experiences with police, it has morphed into a hub that can help in a number of different scenarios, including domestic violence situations and school shootings.
Up next for the app, when it comes to law enforcement interactions, Njie said the company is working to expand capabilities that can tie in a database of attorneys who could also be tapped to join in during an encounter, offer advice, and stand as legal witnesses.
Cheddar Politics takes a deeper look at the takeaways from the Georgia primary elections on Tuesday. Georgia Public Broadcasting's local and state politics reporter, Stephen Fowler, joins us to discuss the limits of Trump endorsements and break down what the outcome in each race means.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Following the mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead, the debate over gun control has been reignited. While studies have shows most Americans agree on some additional regulations, there hasn't been much legislative traction even as gun violence worsens in the country. Brian Lemek, the executive director of Defend The Vote and the former executive director at Brady PAC for gun control, joined Cheddar to discuss reform efforts. "The lawmakers that we have aren't passing these at the federal level," he said. "That's the problem. We have the wrong people in charge."
The crypto industry is still reeling from Terra's recent crash. The company's blockchain was temporarily halted earlier this month after the collapse of its cryptocurrency Luna (LUNA) and its stablecoin TerraUSD (UST), which led to almost $45 billion being wiped from the tokens' market caps within a week. Now, many are left wondering what Terra's struggles mean for the broader crypto market. Reeve Collins, CEO of the NFT platform BLOCKv, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell from Davos 2022 to discuss.
The average city in California has a 38% higher cost of living than the average American city, according to a cost of living index. For many, the general minimum wage of $15/hour just doesn't cut it. Anti-poverty activist Joe Sanberg wants to get the minimum wage changed to $18/hour. He joins Cheddar News to discuss the Living Wage Act of 2022.
