It was nearing closing time in March last year when a manager at Boffi Georgetown dispatched a series of alarmed messages. Observing two men yelling outside the luxury kitchen and bath showroom, Julia Walter reached for her phone and accessed a private messaging application that hundreds of residents, retailers and police in this overwhelmingly white, wealthy neighborhood use to discuss people they deem suspicious.
“2 black males screaming at each other in alley,” Walter wrote. “. . . Help needed.”
One minute later, a District police officer posted he would check it out, and Walter felt relieved. But as weeks gave way to months and the private group spawned hundreds of messages, Walter’s relief turned to unease. The overwhelming majority of the people the app’s users cited were black. Was the chatroom reducing crime along the high-end retail strip? Was it making people feel safer? Or was it racial profiling?
These are questions being asked across the country as people experiment with services that bill themselves as a way to prevent crime, but also expose latent biases. The application “SketchFactor,” which invited users to report “sketchy” people, faced allegations of racism in both the District and New York. Another social network roiled Oakland, Calif., when white residents used Nextdoor.com to cite “suspicious activity” about black neighbors. Taking it even further was GhettoTracker.com, which asked users to rate neighborhoods based on whether they thought they were “safe” or a “ghetto.”
Now “Operation GroupMe” is stirring controversy in Georgetown. In February of last year, the Georgetown Business Improvement District partnered with District police to launch the effort, which they call a “real-time mobile-based group-messaging app that connects Georgetown businesses, police officers and community members.” Since then, the app has attracted nearly 380 users who surreptitiously report on — and photograph — shoppers in an attempt to deter crime.
The correspondence has provided an unvarnished glimpse into Georgetown retailers’ latest effort to stop their oldest scourge: shoplifting. But while the goal is admirable, the result, critics say, has been less so, laying bare the racial fault lines that still define this cobblestoned enclave of tony boutiques and historic rowhouses that is home to many of Washington’s elite.
Since March of last year, Georgetown retailers have dispatched more than 6,000 messages that warn of suspicious shoppers. A review by the Business Improvement District of all the messages since January — more than 3,000 — revealed that nearly 70 percent of those patrons were black. The employees often allege shoplifting. But other times, retailers don’t accuse these shoppers of anything beyond seeming suspicious.
“Suspicious shoppers in store,” an American Apparel retailer said in April last year. “3 female. 1 male strong smell of weed. All African American. Help please.”
“What did they look like?” a True Religion employee in May last year asked an American Apparel retailer who had reported a theft. “Ratchet,” the American Apparel worker replied, using a slang term for trashy that often has a racial connotation. “Lol.”
“Suspicious tranny in store at Wear,” reported one worker at Hu’s Wear in May. “AA male as female. 6ft 2. Broad shoulders.” Tranny means transsexual in the app-users’ jargon.
The retailers have also uploaded hundreds of pictures to the chatroom, many of which they took clandestinely. Since March last year, the images have shown more than 230 shoppers, more than 90 percent of whom are African American. “Known thieves,” one retailer wrote beside pictures of three African American women, without specifying any evidence. “Look out.”
It’s unclear what effect, if any, such correspondence has had on crime in the area. Some retailers say the community feels safer and more connected. But it has precipitated “relatively few arrests,” said Joe Sternlieb, chief executive of the Georgetown Business Improvement District, which organized the group. He added: “It’s impossible to know what’s working and what’s not to deter crime.”
People who know about the group are nervous to talk about it. District police declined numerous requests for comment. Some retailers wouldn’t discuss the group. Others would, but only on the condition of anonymity.
“It’s such a volatile issue that it’s not a good idea to be on the record,” explained one man who requested that he only be identified as a Georgetown retailer. “Every headline in the country is about officers and the race issue, and it’s a terrible issue and [this] is a delicate balance. . . . Shoplifting has always been an issue and as long as there’s stores, lower-income people are going to have a higher tendency to steal.”
Source: The Washington Post | Terrence McCoy
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