SAN FRANCISCO — Ferguson. Baton Rouge. Falcon Heights, Minn. The string of fatal police shootings reverberates with Shervin Pishevar, an Iranian-born technology investor who has backed Uber and other promising companies.
With his own venture capital firm Sherpa Capital, Pishevar seeks out ideas that have the potential to shake up the status quo. One reality he says he desperately wants to change: the disproportionate killings of African Americans by police officers.
Pishevar, an influential and connected figure in Silicon Valley, is proposing an idea he hopes could one day save lives: a mobile app for police officers and citizens.
The mobile app would start a FaceTime-like call or, for someone who does not have a smartphone, a phone call between the police officer and the citizen. His theory is that exchanging information such as driver's license and registration over the mobile app, rather than face to face, could keep tensions from escalating during a traffic stop.
"The police officer would still be in their car. The person would still be in their car," Pishevar told USA TODAY. "The mobile app would put distance between the police officer and the citizen and a lot of stuff could happen automatically."
Pishevar floated the idea on Twitter the same day the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police. Hours later, another shooting death served as a grim reminder of its urgency, this time when a St. Paul man, 32-year-old Philando Castile, was fatally shot by police in Falcon Heights, Minn. during a traffic stop.
Reaction: App's not the answer
Pishevar's proposal — among the first from Silicon Valley that could, in his words, "statistically reduce the number of these senseless killings" — got mixed reactions, with some volunteering to work on the app, others mocking an effort to fight institutional racism and anti-blackness with a mobile app.
Tech entrepreneur Anil Dash says he welcomes prominent tech voices in the fight to end police violence but he'd like to see Pishevar and others use their money and influence to change public policy and provide resources to organizations already on the ground working on the problem.
"'There's an app for that' is not the answer to institutional racism," Dash said.
Kristy Tillman, who works for a tech start-up as a design director, says technology can play a role "in a multi-prong approach that addresses policy and other systemic forces head on."
But, she says, "the technology industry will have to move beyond the app as a solution mentality. I think if Silicon Valley is going to throw its proverbial hat in the ring, it needs to be with a high level of intentionality and collaboration with people who understand policy, activists, law enforcement operations and especially the communities most affected."
Pishevar agrees ending police violence will require systemic change and creative use of technology, but hopes "publicly brainstorming" his idea could be a starting point to help save lives like Castile's. He is also reaching out for support from local, state and federal lawmakers.
"The thing is, getting rid of racism is a cultural thing that takes decades. It's not something we can solve immediately. Structural changes have to happen in our culture. But we can use technology to at least make it much harder for racists to execute violence on people," Pishevar says.
Cutting-edge consumer technology has been an integral part of how the public consumes information about police shootings in the last few years.
The latest is Facebook Live, the live-streaming feature on Facebook's app. Castile's girlfriend Diamond Reynolds, a passenger in the car stopped in Minnesota, captured the bloody aftermath of the police shooting in a Facebook Live stream that was viewed over 4 million times in under 24 hours after the shooting. The video showed Castile slumped in the driver's seat, her 4-year-old daughter in the backseat.
In the chaotic moments following the shooting, she says her boyfriend was reaching into his pocket to get his driver's license and had informed the officer he was carrying a licensed firearm.
"If the app existed the interaction between the police officer and man could have happened via the app. There would be no reason for the officer to ask for the license and registration. It could have been confirmed via the app," Pishevar says. "If he was licensed to carry, the app could send notification and he drops the gun on the ground."
The mobile app as Pishevar envisions it would automatically begin recording audio and video as soon as a traffic stop occurs. It would also include a panic button that would contact specially trained officers who could attempt to "de-escalate what's going on by directly communicating with the police officer," Pishevar says.
The main drawback to his idea, Pishevar says, is that the mobile app would be useless to anyone who does not have a mobile phone. One solution: the app could be embedded in the technology of newer cars and older cars could be retrofitted with it, he says.
"These things could be automated, especially with the newer cars," Pishevar says. "If you combine the camera that the police officer would wear, the mobile app and potentially integrated apps within the car, then that gets kind of interesting."
'Silicon Valley doesn't care'
Silicon Valley is known for its ingenuity in finding creative solutions to challenging problems. Pishevar and other say it now needs to address police deaths.
Already, technology built by Silicon Valley has put the national spotlight on many. Twitter thrust the Michael Brown protests into the public consciousness. Video footage filmed on smartphones wielded by eyewitnesses has played a key role in the public response to others, such as the death of Eric Garner. .
"We are living in an era when that kind of transparency brought by tech and mobile allows us to see what's been going on for a very long time. The reality is that Silicon Valley technology is the reason that these things can't be hidden anymore," Pishevar says.
Now Pishevar wants others to devote brainpower to coming up with creative ways to bring an end to what he calls "modern-day lynchings."
"I think it's the responsibility of people in tech to find solutions," says Pishevar, whose heart broke watching the young son of 37-year-old Sterling cry out in anguish for his father on television.
Senseless deaths of African Americans hit close to home for Pishevar, whose nephews are half black. After the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Pishevar says he was struck by the bone-chilling reality: "That could have been my nephew wearing a hoodie and walking innocently through a neighborhood."
Silicon Valley companies have worked to shape public policy in other areas, fighting for immigration reform or against anti-LGBTQ legislation. But the tech industry has been criticized by some black tech workers for saying and doing very little about the rash of police killings while trying to recruit African Americans to diversify their workforces. African Americans make up a tiny percentage, about 2%, of the tech workforce in Silicon Valley.
"Where are the initiatives from Silicon Valley heavyweights to make this stop?" wrote product designer Justin Edmund in a Medium essay entitled Silicon Valley doesn't care about black people. "Tech companies are no strangers to using media, money, and smarts to raise the stakes on issues it cares about."
Some in the tech community have been more vocal than others.
Google has given more than $5 million in grants to racial justice groups and in November screened 3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets, the documentary about the shooting death of unarmed black 17-year-old Jordan Davis outside a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2012 by a white man.
On Thursday, the Internet giant said it held vigils for Castile and Sterling and tweeted that it stood "in solidarity with the fight for racial justice," adding the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.
Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and digital payments company Square, took two weeks off from running Square in 2014 to march with protesters in Ferguson. The St. Louis native grew up a 15-minute drive away from the protests which erupted after a white police officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown. On Thursday, he shared on Twitter Beyoncé's statement on the deaths of Castile and Sterling.
For real change to spring from Silicon Valley, Dash says ending police violence has to become a higher priority for the tech industry which flexes its political muscle on such issues as NSA surveillance that threaten its livelihood.
"I think that 4-year-old girl would much rather have her e-mail spied on and have her mom's boyfriend still be here today," Dash says. "Let's put as much effort and will behind stopping this pattern as we do behind surveillance."
Follow USA TODAY senior technology writer Jessica Guynn @jguynn
Source: Tech investor Pishevar brainstorms app to stop police killings
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