Map of Flock cameras in Eugene
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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. For months, Asian American businesses have pleaded with local police in our community about a crime ring that was targeting them for a while. It seemed their pleas fell on deaf ears, but eventually, the police, aided by controversial technology, found the perpetrators and made arrests. While at its heart, this story is about burglary, but it's also about a drama playing out everywhere. Sophisticated crime rings and sophisticated law enforcement technology that leave an anxious public contemplating the choice of allowing tech to catch bad guys while allowing tech to spy on us all. Today, on the show, you'll hear from our own Rebecca Hansen-White, who's followed this story since the beginning, and you'll also hear the CEO of an AI based security company who believes the best solution is a blend of high tech and old-fashioned awareness. Rebecca Hansen-White joins now to pick up the story. KLCC reporter, Rebecca Hansen-White, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming in.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Always glad to be here.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You have been following this story for since it really started here in our region, and that's this sort of sophisticated crime ring that was targeting Asian Americans in Oregon committing burglary. Can you just kind of get our listeners up to speed on what's been happening?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yeah, so in the Eugene Springfield area, there have been almost two dozen burglaries targeting Asian American business owners that Eugene and Springfield Police have told us about, and they have investigated, and they've arrested seven people that were linked to one burglary. And all of these burglaries kind of have the same pattern, which is people were dressing up as pizza delivery drivers or, you know, Amazon workers to approach these houses and spy on the people or get their figure out when they might not be home. So, they were surveilling these families when they weren't home, disabled their security systems with a Wi Fi jammer and then broke in. And so the most recent arrests that we've had, the seven people that got arrested, they're appearing in courts this this week on burglary charges, but police have said they don't believe these are just seven random people, that they're kind of part of a larger organized group that perpetuates these types of crimes, and by larger it could be throughout the entire state of Oregon, or even beyond that, I think national because I think both Washington and Oregon and some of these people had had vehicles that were registered in California. And when we talked to the police chief, he described them as he said the word he thinks that there's some sort of like syndicate or something. So, I think it's sort of a burglary ring where people are being sent to various places to do theft and then dispose of the items they steal elsewhere.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And then in one of your other stories, you covered, sort of this forum that the police chief and the district attorney talk about that, because this has been, you know, and I know you've had to uncover a lot of this stuff, because it was sort of not necessarily, the police sort of said, Hey, let's all get together and talk about this. You kind of had to pry it out a little bit. But then eventually they had this forum and they talked to a bunch of Asian American citizens and business owners about what they can do. Talk about that story.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yeah, so I went and covered that forum and why, I think it was the second one, why these forums took place is originally when these crimes started occurring. The police did, I think, at some point realize that they were specifically targeting Asian American business owners, but they didn't alert people who could be victimized so that they could take additional precautions. They didn't alert people to be on the alert. And so, people were finding out, oh, I'm being targeted by a crime ring until it was kind of too late. So, there was some very public criticism of the police department, of you know prosecutors for not looping in potential victims that they were being targeted, and so these forums have been a proactive effort to tell people, here's what the crime looks like, here's who's being targeted, here's the tactics they're using, and here's how you to protect yourself.
MICHAEL DUNNE: It's interesting, because this story, which you've covered, intersects with another story you've been covering for quite some time, and those are the digital license plate readers, the Flock cameras. What about the Flock cameras and this particular crime?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yeah, so the skyline seven, as the police call them, which are the seven people that they have arrested for one burglary. They caught them with the assistance of the Flock camera system. So, one of the people witnessed, or I think it was, it was private security camera footage of a car where they didn't have a plate. And what's unique about Flock camera systems is, you know, you call them a license plate reader, and that's kind of the best word we have for them, but they're a little bit more than that. You don't just, you don't have to have a plate if you don't, you can use a vehicle description, and that will search as well. And so, Eugene police were able to track these people with the system with a rough description of a vehicle, and so that was, I think, one of the last crimes Eugene police actively, you know, searched in this system before the cameras in Eugene got turned off.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And so, we're going to talk about Flock cameras, because obviously, okay, in the abstract, that's great. This piece of technology aided the police in capturing, you know, criminals, people who were robbing Asian Americans. But that's not the whole story. Is it? As you've well covered, because obviously, Flock cameras are highly controversial, and right now, as you and I are talking, they're not active, they're not turned on in Eugene. Is that correct?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: So, Eugene police and Springfield Police both say that they've asked this private company Flock to turn off their cameras. K-VAL just broke this story earlier this week that unintentionally, a Flock camera in Springfield got turned on, and then a search got done for a vehicle theft, and then it was turned back off, and Flock said it was doing maintenance. So, we've had one, I guess, accident with these cameras. But I think you know what's the most recent development with these is the police have now released where all of the cameras are, and we've actually created a map, which will be up on the KLCC Oregon On The Record page, once we're done with this, where all the Flock cameras in both Eugene and Springfield are, okay and so the public will be able to go on that map and search and realize where the Flock cameras are.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Maybe point out the importance of that because we're talking about something that is technology, but also, it's controversial. And just to kind of remind folks who may not have seen some of your outstanding coverage, there's a lot of people that are concerned that these cameras could violate their rights or could be used nefariously for something like ICE or something like that. Did I encapsulate that?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Basically, yeah, that is the concern locally here, is that ice could access them, people who are trying to prosecute, people who've had abortions, people who, you know, there's always the case that any time you give a police department new technology, there will be a few officers who use it in a way they really shouldn't. So, there's you know, you know that ever present concern, and then just the you know, do we should police know everything about us. We do when you look at where these cameras are, most of them clustered on the on ramps and off ramps of highways in very high traffic intersections, and they're kind of clustered near retail centers. So, there's a couple, you know, around Fred Meyer in the, you know, sorry, yeah, around Fred Meyer, kind of by Seventh Avenue. And, you know, there's some by Valley River Center, and find a few near downtown Eugene. And so, if you are, let's say, going to work, and maybe you're getting treatment of some kind, if someone decided to look you up, they could kind of see you go about your daily life and get a really good picture of where you're going, what you're doing? Who you know when you know, getting the patterns of someone's life. Some people don't really want other people to have that. And there has been some actual research very recently done on this by the University of Washington. They're very widespread, used in Washington state as well, and they found that local police had unintentionally given federal law enforcement access many times, really, and they through not understanding their own settings on the technology, and they had actually provided backdoor access as well with local police doing informal lookups for federal agents, sometimes on things that I think maybe they shouldn't have. And so there has been research done that has shown that, you know, local police can't really guarantee you know that only the people they want are going to access this information they collect.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Boy, this is a tough one, just given the fact that you know, technology like this can certainly help law enforcement, but as you've pointed out very well, a lot of people have big concerns about misuse and unintended use. One last question I might have for you is, what do we know about if and when these already installed cameras will be turned back on in Eugene and Springfield?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: I think Eugene and Springfield have both had some public meetings where some discussion has taken place. I don't know if I don't see a decision being made. Quite yet, there's still people going to city council every week to ask for them to be removed, but they do have contracts, and so it's I think, that you know your elected officials need to get together and make a decision about what they want for those contracts.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I lied. I actually have one more question for you. You've talked to the chief of police, and he's made public statements saying that he feels this is a great law enforcement to tool Flock cameras. I'm just wondering, does it seem like that's a position that the police absolutely hold near and dear that any kind of technology to help them do their job is important, or has chief Skinner been sympathetic to the idea that it could be, it could violate people's rights or that sort of a thing?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: I think that he does understand some of the risks, because he did make some changes after, you know, I obviously can't speak for him. I don't know what's in his mind, but what I've heard him publicly say in public meetings is he has made some changes to the contract, and, you know, some additional safeguards that he's added after hearing public concern about privacy, I know that these cameras have helped them resolve quite a few cases, including some felonies.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, thanks to both you and Zach Ziegler, our reporter who had the idea to put this map together, which we're going to link to our page on Oregon On The Record. Rebecca Hansen-White, always appreciate you doing these stories, covering these topics, and coming in to talk about it. Thanks so much.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Absolutely.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Now we're going to hear from a tech security expert who understands the public's concern about spying and data security breaches, but also believes tech and human intervention can be great crime prevention strategies. David Selinger, the CEO of Deep Sentinel, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
DAVID SELINGER: Michael, glad to be here.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, once you start with the easy one, tell us what Deep Sentinel is and what you do?
DAVID SELINGER: Yeah, sure. So, I'll start with my background a little bit. I'm a technologist. I was really fortunate. I grew up in Southern Oregon and went to Stanford, and so my background is in AI, which I learned at Stanford, and I built deep Sentinel to use artificial intelligence, hopefully to make the world a little bit of a better place, but to solve a security problem and actually stop crimes before they happen, and we use cameras and stuff like that, and kind of, essentially, we intervene in crimes early, using cameras to detect signals that indicate a crime is about to happen, and then we yell at folks, and typically yell them off the property before the crime advances.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, for those of us who are still learning what AI is all about. Explain how AI is part of what you offer. You know, obviously people are used to security cameras, but talk about how artificial intelligence has really kind of expanded the capabilities and whatnot.
DAVID SELINGER: Yeah. I mean, AI is such a neat field to have been involved in, for me for the last 30 years, to get to watch what's happening these last five years is amazing. What we do at Deep Sentinel, we use artificial intelligence to reduce the cost and increase the quality of what it takes to kind of watch a camera, if you imagine sitting and watching, you know, your own doorbell or the cameras around your house or around your business all day long, most time nothing's happening, sure, and so we'll use AI to do is to watch it during all those times and let us know. Hey, I think something suspicious is either occurring or is about to occur.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I see, I see, I know you're aware of this situation that certainly happened in our community here in the Eugene region of a crime ring targeting Asian American businesses and whatnot. I'd love to hear from you. You know, I know you may not be all that versed in it, but it certainly appeared that you know, these criminals were exploiting vulnerabilities in businesses, whether it was posing as pizza delivery drivers or whatnot. Maybe talk a little bit about what you've seen in terms of when criminals target a specific group. In this case, it was Asian Americans, but maybe they were targeting a certain type of business or just exploiting, you know, low hanging fruit. Talk about what your experience shows in terms of what criminals are looking for?
DAVID SELINGER: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a great question, right? This is one of my pieces of advice to people, whenever they talk about crime, a lot of times, people kind of try to put criminals down, or they say, Hey, look at my system or my house, and it’s so rad. And I do this and I do that, and then the first thing I always tell people is just pause for a second and put yourself in the shoes of a criminal, and you know, whatever it is that they're trying to accomplish. How do they do that? The easiest and the most consistently. And what you see is a combination of criminals repeating the same crime over and over again, because they're figuring out how this pattern works. If I go after this kind of store and I say these words, then I kind of get the same outcome. And you'll see that an individual criminal, or small group of criminals, will do that over and over again. Secondly, you'll have look-a-likes. It'll end up on a news program or an interview like this, someone will hear about it, and then they'll try it. And so, this rash of like, repeated types of crimes, it happens everywhere, and it happens all the time. And it's not because criminals are dumb or lazy, it's just because, just like you and I, right, we find a serial we like the morning to get more of it right, and, and, and that's the same way criminals think about the quote, unquote, work that they do. And so, we see this very frequently, where a specific ethnic group will get targeted. Since you brought up Asians, I'm actually my last name Selinger, but my middle name is Lee. I'm half Chinese, okay, and so actually my great grandmother ran a convenience store in Chinatown in Philadelphia, so she got held up about once a week until her last days. But so, we are familiar with being targeted as a family in that regard, and it happens often, like one of the things that we've seen is with targeting Asian families. A lot of times we saw this in Pleasanton, where I live right now, where one of the crime rings targeted people that had piles of shoes or shoe racks outside the front door, because they identified that as being related to being Asians. And they would literally target homes that had shoes outside the house, and so that type of very simple pattern matching happens all the time. If I were to guess your next question, it would be, what do we do about it?
MICHAEL DUNNE: It's a good one.
DAVID SELINGER: Yeah. I mean, the answer is, respond, right? I mean, I think in the same sense, right? If you're a criminal and you're doing something and all of a sudden it gets higher friction. All of a sudden, you start seeing that there's a resistance. You start seeing that people are mobilizing against this. Be public about it. Be loud. Be vocal. Make sure that you're essentially communicating to the criminal. This is no longer the easy target that you thought it was going to be and make that clear. Establishing neighborhood watches is a great way to do that, putting up signs, putting up surveillance cameras and notifying people that there are surveillance cameras, do the deterrence work again, kind of like cross that citizen criminal communication barrier and say we are no longer going to be your simple target. Of course, if you're going to get really serious, of course, recommend considering our solution. But, I mean, that's not the only thing out there. There are so many things that you can do as a citizen, to protect yourself against criminals, do as many of them as you can and make them as visible as possible.
MICHAEL DUNNE: It's interesting because, as I'm hearing you talk, it seems like the best solution might be a blend of technology and sort of good old-fashioned solutions, you know, talking to neighbors and so on and so forth. Is that the way you see it kind of there is this good idea of the old and the new kind of coming together?
DAVID SELINGER: Absolutely, absolutely. Michael, I mean, I think the old adage about security being a bunch of layers, and it's only as strong as its weakest link, that's, that's the model that I always talk to people about. In fact, you know, we talked about Deep Sentinel for just a second. Yeah, we're an AI based camera, super sophisticated, high-end solution. But with my clients, I always tell them, don't just do that. That's silly, right? You're not going to. It's like, you know, if you think about a home and you put one lock on one door and then you leave everything else unlocked, that's not the way to solve this problem. You really have to think about it comprehensively. And again, I start by putting myself in the shoes of a criminal. I work with a lot of celebrities down in the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills and things like that. And one of the most amazing things to me is that these people will be very proud of their bulletproof door or whatnot, and then they have this beautiful façade at the entrance of their house. And I could break into their house in like 10 seconds and you have to, again, all it takes is just put yourself in the shoes of the criminal, and say, what's the easiest path to get in here? And usually, it is going to be exactly what you said, a combination of some basic things like, Hey, have good lighting in your front yard. Have good lighting throughout. Don't turn off all the lights inside your house if you leave for two weeks. Make sure that your neighbors are watching. Have a neighborhood watch. Post signs about that. There's a whole program called CPTED. Have you ever heard of that? I have not. It's Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and it's used by some of the most advanced police departments out there. We love it. I do it at my house 100% so if you're asking, like, do I take my own medicine? I absolutely combine my system with CPTED and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. CPTED is doing those basic things, like having good lighting, making sure that if your neighbors are driving by, you don't have bushes, so that they can't see your front door, so they have visibility and can be your natural surveillance, protecting your property even when they're just walking by or driving by.
MICHAEL DUNNE: David Selinger, CEO of Deep Sentinel, really appreciate you coming on and talking about this, this complex issue.
DAVID SELINGER: Yeah. Thank you, Michael. I definitely appreciate it.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear from Oregon State Senator Christine Drazan, who's again running for Oregon governor. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record, thanks for listening.
