Portland privacy activists have reported that Oakland Police Captain Trevelyon Jones, the head of OPD’s Shotspotter Division, has been appearing remotely at community meetings in Portland, Oregon at the request of gunshot detection software manufacturer Shotspotter, to hawk their product.
Jones, a city of Oakland employee, appears to be on city time during these appearances, (at least two), in which Shotspotter is trying to gin up community support for a municipal contract. In an earlier appearance, people present at the meeting reported that Lieutenant Jones said he had to depart early from the meeting due to police business.
Why is a high-level OPD lieutenant, who according to Transparent California collected over $60,000 in overtime in 2021 and total compensation of more than $433,000 from the City moonlighting as a Shotspotter sales agent?
Oakland Privacy filed an ethics complaint with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission on 12/21/22. See a copy of the complaint below.
Oakland public ethics law prohibits the use of city resources for non-city purposes or outside endeavors that financially benefit private parties, like the surveillance vendor Shotspotter.
According to KPFTV Portland, as of November 7, the City Of Portland is actively considering a deployment and is “searching for locations for a pilot program.
Oregon Public Broadcasting has been chronicling Shotspotter’s aggressive campaign in Portland and clear attempts to evade public records laws by the Portland Police Bureau.