Five-O is a mobile application created by three
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
siblings from Georgia, USA.
The three, Ima, Asha, and Caleb Christian,
aged 16, 15, and 14 respectively, in 2014, created the application as an attempt to provide a solution to the issues generated from interaction between law enforcement and citizens, such as
the shooting of Michael Brown, and their own traumatic experience with two police officers.
The application was launched on 18 August 2014.
The application is available on both
Android and
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
platforms, and has been developed in collaboration with Pinetart Inc., a company developing mobile applications they have founded.
The term Five-O is American slang for law enforcement, based on
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O or Hawaii Five-0 may refer to:
* ''Hawaii Five-0'' (2010 TV series), an American action police procedural television series
* ''Hawaii Five-O'' (1968 TV series), an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productio ...
, a television programme.
The application allows a user to maintenance of records in the form of a short description of interaction with an individual police officer, and a rating of the degree of courtesy and professionalism exhibited by the officer. It allows a user to record his/her personal details such as race and age. Such a record would be available for access as when needed.
The application would provide a record of positive interactions, such as that of officers saving a pet, this record could be used to identify positive prototypes that other officers would aim to emulate. The application also provides information about the civil rights of a citizen from
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
.
The application is available for download on
Android devices and is pending approval from iStore.
Elahe Izadi blogging for ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
''describes the application as
Yelp
Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Fra ...
like, she states that the application demonstrates that the black community in America doesn't implicitly trust the police, quoting surveys that inform that 70 percent of black men perceive police discrimination with relation with respect to whites, or 25 percent of black males aged between 18 and 34 experienced abuse at the hands of the police.
Fatima Mazhar writing for carbonated.tv considers this application as one of the positives that has come out of the Michael Brown shooting.
References
{{reflist, 30em
Android (operating system) software