Episode #33: AI Body-Cams: Meet This Startup Transforming Policing

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  Sam Herrick:
  Welcome back to this episode of The Tech Optimist: Meet the Startup. Today we talked with Truleo. The voices that you’ll hear on today’s episode are from Mike Collins, CEO here at Alumni Ventures, Anthony Tassone, Co-founder and CEO at Truleo—the highlighted startup for today—and myself, Sam Herrick, your tech note writer, guide, and overall Sherpa for the show today.

  Have you ever wondered what happens to all the data that comes from body-worn cameras used by police? A company called Truleo has figured out what to do with it. Welcome back. Let’s hop right in.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Most civilians are surprised to learn that none of the body camera videos are reviewed.

  Mike Collins:
  This is a phenomenon that I think we’ve all experienced—videos are really part of our society now, including body cameras on our civil servants and police officers.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Making your elected officials aware that they can get a better return by implementing a solution like Truleo.

  Sam Herrick:
  In a world captivated by criticism, it’s easy to overlook the groundbreaking technologies shaping our future. Let’s shine a light on innovators who are propelling us forward. As the most active venture capital firm in the US, we have an exceptional view of tech’s real-world impact. Join us as we explore, celebrate, and contribute to the stories of those creating tomorrow. Welcome to The Tech Optimist.

  As a reminder, The Tech Optimist Podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not personalized advice, and it’s not an offer to buy or sell securities. For additional important details, please see the text description accompanying this episode.

  Mike Collins:
  Let’s get into it. So welcome to this episode of The Tech Optimist Podcast where we meet founders, and today I’ve got the privilege to talk to someone who’s doing some really interesting work with an early-stage company. AT, nice to meet you.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Yes, sir. Nice to meet you, Mike. Essentially the problem we solve is police morale, recruiting, and retention—all very low. There’s no recognition. There’s not a lot of celebration happening in policing. Most civilians are surprised to learn that none of the body camera videos are reviewed. Unless there’s a horrific use of force or a complaint, no one’s watching these videos at the department.

  So what we do is we transcribe and analyze these videos and we recognize officer professionalism. If they do a good job, they get credit for doing a good job. They can earn high professionalism, high composure; they get credit for de-escalation attempts. Truleo puts their career in context and really helps officers understand which language is leading to the best outcomes.

  Sam Herrick:
  Truleo’s mission is about recognizing police professionalism. On their YouTube channel, they’re active in posting videos about their product. I came across a really cool one with Officer Christine Platt from Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania. Anthony and Christine sit down and talk about Truleo and how it has helped progress and legitimize her career.

  I’m going to play that right now—it’s about five minutes. After that, we’ll hop into a quick ad and then go right back into the interview. Again, don’t go anywhere.

  Officer Christine Platt:
  It’s showing little girls that they can do this line of work. When I go into the schools, I teach DARE, and when you walk in and see the faces light up with the little girls there and they look up to you and say, “Wow, you’re a girl cop,” and you’re like, “Yep, I’m a girl.”

  I think if you have data that backs up the fact that officers are actually acting professional, with more positive interactions, it would shed a new light on law enforcement as a profession. Right now, people are only seeing what’s on social media and in the news. If you can combat that with facts and data, it would definitely help with retention and the hiring process because people will see the positive interactions and the change we can actually create—it’s not all negative.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Officer Platt, earlier this morning I spoke with your chief and he said something interesting. He said he, “Always knew that Officer Platt was a highly professional officer, but before Truleo, he didn’t have the data to prove it.”

  Officer Christine Platt:
  It lets me know that I’m doing the job in the way that I intended. My goal and mission as a police officer is to always treat everybody fairly, to be respectful, to be competent, and I want to do the job and do it well. So it’s providing me with a sense of accomplishment, knowing that I’m achieving that goal and projecting the perspective that I want.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Officer Platt, what do you find is the most difficult part of your job?

  Officer Christine Platt:
  In my past experience with this job, the most difficult thing is when you’re going to the same residences over and over again, especially in cases of domestic violence. When they’re calling for your help and you’re providing all the information that you can, sometimes they’re not ready or they don’t have the inner strength to act, so they don’t follow the advice. Then you go back again and again.

  After you’ve met someone on so many occasions, you develop an investment in their wellbeing and you don’t want to see them get hurt. So knowing the possibilities of different outcomes if they choose to stay—it’s very hard.

  Anthony Tassone:
  What does it mean to you to be highly professional? How do you think that impacts everyone you deal with in the community—their perception of this department? How does it impact officer safety and public safety in general?

  Officer Christine Platt:
  I think one of the biggest things is when you’re very professional, it shows that you care about your job. With that care, people know you’re putting forth effort. It shows that you’re competent, respectful, and fair. That builds trust and respect from your community.

  On most of our calls involving children, I always get down on their level, ask if they’re okay, try to make conversation, and make sure they’re comfortable. Mom or dad is probably going through enough and may not have thought about how their child is doing—so that’s one less thing off their plate.

  A lot of times, police officers are portrayed in a negative way. Showing data to back up that officers have been professional, doing their job correctly and respectfully—and that one negative incident shouldn’t define an entire officer’s reputation—is really important.

  Anthony Tassone:
  You’re very good at de-escalating situations. We’ve looked at your data through the cameras—you collect an unusual amount of citizen gratitude. That’s something that jumped off the pages to us. I watched a few of your videos, and you’ve got really good technique around introducing yourself and giving a reason for the stop.

  Officer Christine Platt:
  Thank you.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Why is that important to you as an officer?

  Officer Christine Platt:
  I think, well, number one, traffic stops are one of the most stressful things for the average driver. Most people don’t get pulled over, and when they do, they’re super nervous. They don’t know what’s going to happen. So with knowledge, I think you decrease that amount of stress.

  I’m Officer Platt. I’m with Castle Shannon Police Department. I’m Officer Platt. I’m with Castle Shannon Police. I’m Officer Platt. I’m with Castle Shannon Police. So the reason for this stop is the plate is showing that it expired. The reason for this stop is—

   

  Officer Christine Platt:
  Yes. So the reason for the stop is the expired inspection.

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  Mike Collins:
  So tell me—I mean, it’s a fascinating approach you’ve taken with this company and the use of AI and this phenomenon that I think we’ve all experienced, which is that videos are really part of our society now, including body cameras on our civil servants and police officers. Talk to me a little bit about the origin story and how you kind of put this all together in such a fascinating way.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Sure. So this is the second company my co-founder Tejas and I have started. We come from Wall Street—we were transcribing and analyzing banker calls for Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan. We became experts at natural language processing before it was cool.

  Meanwhile, I happen to be from a law enforcement and military family. I’m on the Board of the FBI National Academies Foundation. So I’m around what I consider the top 1% of police in the world, and I go to Quantico quarterly and sit and talk to a bunch of command staff around the country.

  I started to really understand the problem they have, which is they can’t recognize professionalism. They can’t quantify the amount of good policing that occurs in their community. And if you can’t speak to those facts and that data, it’s really hard to maintain trust. And if you don’t have trust in your community, it’s very difficult to stop crime.

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah, no, what we hear about is the percent of percent of things that are just bad events, and those are… With human beings, these things are going to happen. But the day-to-day hard work and grind—my parents were teachers and I often talked about how they just got up and tried to do their job every day and were really unrecognized and second-guessed.

  So I really appreciate the work you guys are doing. Talk a little bit about selling into this kind of environment. Everybody bemoans trying to sell into organizations. So what do you think about that? How do you develop competencies in that for Truleo?

  Anthony Tassone:
  Yes, it’s very delicate. You have to be very smart. You have to be very strategic. There are decision-makers from the mayor to the city council, to the police chief, to the police union leadership. So you’ve got all these different stakeholders with different competing interests, and you need to do the balancing act.

  Truleo is not a punitive tool. We don’t position it as a tool to beat cops over the head for saying a swear word. We focus on recognition and giving officers praise and facilitating coaching and suggestions. We put in place incentives—human beings are incentive-based.

  So if you’ve got a system in place like Truleo that’s going to reward and recognize officers doing a good job, it doesn’t take long for everybody to start figuring out how they get recognized for following the right call script, saying the right things, and reducing noncompliant and upset persons.

  Anthony Tassone:
  So I think you sell with data. You show that it works, you show that it’s working in other departments, you show that officers’ opinions and attitudes towards the software improve over time as well. I remember my family didn’t like body cameras when they first came out and now they love them. Now, they wouldn’t leave the house without them. And so body camera analytics will be the same thing. It will be totally normalized within a few years and just part of policing.

  I think the reason for that is because good officers can have a bad day, and if you’re a good officer, you’re going to want a body of work created that can tell your story to say, “Hey, look, I’ve dealt with 10,000 noncompliant persons and the first time I used force was today.” Otherwise, you’re just walking into court and you’re just another officer that used force. And so Truleo can help quantify good policing and put that in context.

  Sam Herrick:
  I really like the phrase that Anthony said here—that Truleo can quantify good policing—and he’s bringing up how BWCs, or body-worn cameras, can do that. So I came across an NPR article called Study: Body-Worn Camera Research Shows Drop in Police Use of Force.

  I followed that article to the study, and the study is done by a bunch of great experts out of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. This was done in March of 2021, and they were exploring the benefits and costs of body-worn cameras in policing. I highly recommend the study—I gave it a quick read. If you have a few minutes, we’ll have a link to it in the show notes. It’s a really fascinating study.

  Right now, I also read the full NPR article, so I’m going to read a few snippets from it. This article was written by Cheryl Corley in April of 2021:

  “A team of public safety experts and world economists say body-worn cameras are both beneficial and cost-effective. The report is an update of a variety of studies of body-worn cameras, and it also compares the cost of the technology to the dollar value of the benefits that may come as a result.”

  Professor Jens Ludwig, head of the crime lab, says:

  “The findings show the key benefit of body-worn cameras is the reduced use of police force. For example, among the police departments studied, complaints against police dropped by 17%, and the use of force by police during fatal and non-fatal encounters fell by nearly 10%. Body-worn cameras are a useful part of their response, but not a solution by themselves.”

  Now, let’s loop this back into the context of Truleo as a company. We now understand that body-worn cameras are beneficial for civilians, for the community, and for the police force themselves—kind of like what Anthony was talking about with the whole court situation, where there is documented proof and evidence of every police incident.

  These articles and these studies are super beneficial and helpful to this podcast episode because they help contextualize and quantify all of the data that is just sitting there, not really being processed. Truleo’s mission is to go through all of that data and give it back to the officers and to the community—exemplifying who the good officers are, how they work within the community, all their accomplishments, and everything else.

  The video we heard earlier with Christine Platt is a perfect example of that.

  Mike Collins:
  No, it reminds me too, AT, about the role of an entrepreneur. Everybody thinks yes, it’s about identifying a pain point and a problem—that’s a big part of it—and then developing a product that solves that problem, hopefully an order of magnitude better than alternatives. But the role of an entrepreneur is also innovating and figuring out a sales process and what kind of sales team we need. There’s innovation throughout the organization, throughout the value chain, that needs to be done.

  And so again, it strikes me that that’s probably something that’ll be part of your journey too—how do you develop an innovative, strategic sales force that you can scale this thing?

  Sam Herrick:
  One more short break and then we’ll get right back into the interview. We’ll be right back.

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  Anthony Tassone:
  Yeah, certainly scaling and the go-to-market—I think about it all the time, and I think it’s probably the biggest difference between my first company, where I was obsessed over product, and now my second company, I’m obsessed over distribution and marketing. I think about channels and partners and putting in place the right incentives to just move bigger mountains faster.

  Mike Collins:
  So we have a community. How can our community help? What is your task, AT, that we could help with?

  Anthony Tassone:
  I think your community should be aware that less than 1% of police body camera videos are ever reviewed. Your community also happens to be in the same cities. Your community overlaps with major cities and suburbs and just the exact same places that Truleo is trying to get into.

  So I think if you want to improve trust in the police, if you want to provide recognition to your police, you’ll support Truleo at city council meetings, with your mayor, with your elected officials. I think it just starts by increasing awareness—”Hey, did you guys know that we’re spending 10 million a year on body camera videos and we don’t review any of these videos?”—so just making your elected officials aware that they can get a better return on that data by implementing a solution like Truleo.

  Mike Collins:
  And that could be at local, that could be at the state level, any of that, I assume?

  Anthony Tassone:
  That’s correct. Yeah, it could be any elected official. A lot of influence comes from unusual places. We did a crowdfunding campaign a year ago and we sold over a million dollars in common on StartEngine. We did that because now I have over 500 investors that are very influential throughout the country, very passionate about what Truleo is doing.

  One of the reasons we wanted to work with Alumni Ventures is because of your community. Just the sheer size of it is huge and massive. And we wanted an opportunity to speak to them directly and say, “Hey guys, everyone’s quality of life improves with Truleo. Everyone wins. Not only does the officer win, and the command staff and the mayor and elected officials win, but the community is going to get better quality of service when body camera videos are analyzed.”

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah. So again, a call to our community. Again, I know for a fact that our community is very successful, very well-placed, has really close relationships with people that would be willing to listen to this kind of story, which I think is… It’s just such a win-win for our society and for our communities that we live and work in. So I would encourage you to take a few minutes, drop a note to them. We’ll put some stuff in the show notes that can be helpful for you to do that kind of warm introduction, but would really encourage us all again, do this better together than we can do on our own. So I strongly encourage you.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Thanks, Mike.

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah. Taking one step back, AT, where do you see this in the context of trends and what’s going on in the future that, again, our community is very curious about understanding where the world’s going? Where do you think this is on trend?

  Anthony Tassone:
  I think that police hiring, recruiting, and retention has collapsed. So in most of these major cities, the departments are running at something like 70–80% capacity. And so Truleo can fix that. By surfacing well, you’re going to attract more people to the job, you’re going to attract the right people to the job. The job is less than 4% of interactions that are sort of what I would call cops and robbers. About 96% are taking statements, you’re going to domestics, you’re dealing with persons in crisis. So really being able to quantify exactly what police work is will attract the right people. It’s an extremely noble profession for somebody that wants to get into service and be an asset in their community.

  And so the very first thing we’re doing is impacting these communities’ ability to recruit and retain the right folks for the job.

  Where do I think it’s going? I think we’re building a sort of police officer assistant of the future. I think we’re starting by analyzing body camera videos. We’re providing suggestions and coaching like, “Hey, you went to that call. You did a great job, but here are some tips and tricks of things you could say differently next time to reduce escalations.”

  And I think as we move to the mobile phone, this thing—Truleo—will become an officer’s partner. It’ll be this virtual police officer that they talk to on their way to a call. It will tell me, “Hey, the last three times we’ve been here, there have been kids at this house,” or, “This is a little old lady that’s called 911 a few times and hung up.” It’ll tell me more about the place I’m going to. It will tell me more about how I did after the call.

  When cameras go real time, it might even provide in-call, real-time suggestions, sort of like how call centers operate. Afterward, it will give me praise. It will create social media highlight reels of me. It will help me tell my story to my family, my community, to my command staff. It will be my partner.

  Mike Collins:
  Yeah. No, it’s exciting. And again, we’re just thrilled to be part of your journey. We know it’s early stage, but again, a huge opportunity and just a fantastic set of founders here. We’re really excited to be part of it. We think our community can make a difference. And I thank you for your time, AT, and keep up the good work. We’re really happy to be involved.

  Anthony Tassone:
  I appreciate it. Thank you. We’re happy to have you as well. Appreciate your time. Thank you.

  Mike Collins:
  All right. Thank you, AT, that was great.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Cool. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate your time.

  Mike Collins:
  Have a good week.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Thanks. You too.

  Mike Collins:
  Thanks.

  Anthony Tassone:
  Bye-bye.

  Sam Herrick:
  Thanks again for tuning into The Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d really appreciate it if you’d give us a rating on whichever podcast app you’re using and remember to subscribe to keep up with each episode. The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions. So please email us at [email protected] with any of those, and be sure to visit our website at av.vc. As always, keep building.