Police brutality has become a mainstream social issue in the United States following the controversial deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner. For individuals who want to stay up to date on police shootings, there is a new app that will deliver a push notification any time a life is lost in a police-involved incident.
The app, called Archives + Absences, uses data from the Guardian’s “The Counted” open database, which was created to keep track of police-related deaths. The app allows the user to see a map pin of where the incident took place.
According to the Guardian ’s database, 59 individuals have been killed by the police in 2016 thus far. It should be noted that the database keeps track of shootings but that does not mean this value is all related to police brutality.
Taking into consideration that young black men are nine times more likely to be killed by the police than other Americans, according to a study from Guardian.
“This epidemic is disproportionately affecting black people,” said Brittany Packnett, an activist and member of the White House task force on policing, to Guardian. “We are wasting so many promising young lives by continuing to allow this to happen.”
Archives + Absences was created by web developer Josh Begley, who previously created a similar app called Dronestream. This app tracks U.S. military drone strikes abroad. Begley is also behind the sites Officer Involved and Profiling.is.
MIC reports that users should download the app quickly, as it could be violating censorship standards. Begley’s app Dronestream has been removed for “objectionable content.”
