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.
The Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government is not ruling out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if it maintains its stance of calling the stretch of sea between northeastern Mexico and the southeastern United States the “Gulf of America.” Sheinbaum, in her morning press conference on Thursday, said the president’s decree to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the body of water. “We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
President Donald Trump is hitting foreign steel and aluminum with a 25% tax. If that sounds familiar, it’s because he did pretty much the same thing during
President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. to stop minting pennies. His surprise announcement comes after decades of unsuccessful efforts to phase out the 1-cent coin. Advocates for ditching the penny cite its high production cost and limited utility. Fans of the penny cite its usefulness in charity drives and relative bargain in production costs compared with the nickel. Here's a look at some question surrounding Trump's order.
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Brian Bennett, Senior White House correspondent at TIME, discusses Musk's relationship to Donald Trump and how he has such access in the federal government.