Miami cops complained that their lives were endangered due to the ability to pinpoint police locations on the app, reports NBC 6. “It puts us at risk, puts the public at risk, because it’s going to cause more deadly force encounters between law enforcement and suspects,” said Miami Fraternal Order of Police president Sgt. Javier Ortiz.
As just desserts, hundreds of Miami police officers installed Waze on their smartphones for the sole purpose of submitting false information. The officers hoped to flood the app with false cop locations, so as to make their true positions more difficult to find on the app.
Even though we don’t really know whether this tactic is working or not, not everyone is onboard. According to Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, he doesn’t buy the belief that Waze’s “police stalker” feature endangers his officers.
“If someone is suffering mental illness and they want to commit a heinous crime or hunt a deputy or a police officer, they don’t need Waze to do that,” said Sheriff Israel.
For its part, Waze said police support the service and its reports of police presence “because most users tend to drive more carefully when they believe law enforcement is nearby.”
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