ST. LOUIS, MO (KMOX) — A new smartphone app, developed by a former St. Louis County officer, allows you to rate your interaction with police.
"Right now we don't know what the citizens want from us," says Tony Malik who spent 12 years with the St. Louis County Police Department before moving to a job with a federal agency in the Washington, D.C. area, "departments think that they know what citizens want. Citizens are like, 'You don't know what we want from you.' So there's a miscommunication."
It was the death of George Floyd that spurred Malik to complete work on his concept for Officer Survey.
Departments that sign up to use the platform can track the performance of each officer in the eyes of the community. Each time officers go on a call, they give citizens a code to use in the app.
"The officer has to have an interaction with that individual, then provide them with a code, then the citizen uses that code in order to give feedback," Malik explains. "So no one can just log in as you would in Yelp and leave a bad review for a restaurant."
Malik says supervisors can track feedback over time – even getting alerts if an officer falls below a certain threshold. Malik anticipates departments could use data from Officer Survey to tailor training and assignments, reward high-performing officers and learn which neighborhoods might need more help.
Malik says they surveyed police and community members before rolling out the service two weeks ago.
"Overwhelmingly they all agreed, open communication and community involvement is the only way to overcome many of the challenges that we face on a daily basis," Malik says.
Malik says the app is being tried on the East Coast now, but he is already talking with 25 other departments across the country interested in the platform.
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