Before the bullet hits the body

Title: Before the bullet hits the body

Medium: Ground Mural

Artist: Bill Balaskas & Stop LAPD Spying Coalition

Year: 2021

Location: On display at Pedion tou Areos

Glossary: algorithm

Video documentaries and reports on predictive policing, and on the work of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition.

The Report ‘Before the Bullet Hits the Body’ by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition that led to the dismantlement of LAPD’s “predictive” policing programmes.

The infographic offers the “big picture” – a comprehensive overview of the way in which the “Stalker State” operates, through public and private organisations-corporations that use technologies producing a complex network of spying and oppression mechanisms (from the project ‘The Stalker State’ of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition).

Presentation of the Coalition at the LA Police Commission’s Public Hearings on Data-Driven Evince Based Policing, on 24 July 2018. The Coalition demanded the dismantlement of predictive policing programmes and a thorough audit by the Office of Inspector General.

In March 2019, Inspector General Mark Smith released a 52-page report, which found that LAPD officers used inconsistent criteria to identify people with criminal histories who are most likely to commit violent crimes. According to the report, 44% of the so-called chronic offenders had either zero or one arrest for violent crimes. About half had no arrests for gun-related crimes, while others were in custody or had been arrested for only nonviolent crimes.

Timeline of the Coalition’s activities from June 2013 to April 2020, as published in the organization’s zine, “Not a moment in time, but a continuation of history” (May 2020).