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Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

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Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#11

Post by pascalmemories »

metric10 wrote: post #4
arcticfox wrote: post #2

From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.

And the reason he blew up was because any changes to the way 911 operators worked had to be approved. Wow. What I can't believe was that he was allowed to resign and wasn't fired on the spot.

You read the story quite differently from me.

I don't think he changed how they operated at all.

He gave them a program which highlighted the most critical calls for most urgent attention.

That's EXACTLY how 911 operators are SUPPOSED to operate.

CAD systems are supposed to do that but it can be difficult to properly do that when lots of calls come in - and when a really critical calls does come in, it frequently is reported multiple times leading to duplicates as other operators key it simultaneously. Many CAD systems will not automatically connect them and require intervention. It sounds like metrics like this and others were being used to automatically suggest critical calls.

He helped them do their job, in the way they should do their job, but in a way which was efficient and directly led to better, and possibly life-saving, outcomes to residents of Seattle.

But you are suggesting he should have been fired ?

[edit:spelling]

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#12

Post by martin1975 »

neoCrimeLabs wrote: post #9
squidfood wrote: post #3

Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").

This was my thought as well. Lets hire someone who has been antagonizing the SPD (and arguably visa versa) for a long time, and make them work together! What cold possibly go wrong? I'm actually not trying to be a smart-ass. There is a very public history of tension between Tim and the SPD. Two parties with such a history mixed with an organization that is already mired in politics created a situation that was all bu…

Seems to me they gave him ample chance to play ball, after hiring him because of his dogged persistence - something most cops can relate to.

Once he was in the door, it was on him to prove he can work within their framework. He failed and escorted himself out of there.

Unless he accepts responsibility for his shortcomings -first-, blaming a powerful institution like a police department isn't going to do him any good.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#13

Post by Azkar »

martin1975 wrote: post #10
squidfood wrote: post #3

Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").

Because employers love hiring people for the purposes of berating them until they blow up, then firing them when they realize they screwed up and try to play ball. That is a very perverse theory that can be disproved by another techie who has lasted there longer than 6 months. It appears the programmer failed to realize how srructured and protocol driven the SPD is, #1, and #2, his tact was atrocious, which is probab…

This really isn't a problem that's unique to the SPD. I've worked for several corporations that are resistant to change for whatever reason and it is extremely frustrating. The engineers end up being told to do X, instead of being asked to solve problems.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#14

Post by metric10 »

pascalmemories wrote: post #7

Unfortunately, policing culture is very territorial and operates at extreme levels of testosterone fueled territory marking. A tech-nerd (with possibly some autistic traits from the descriptions) is never going to get along in that environment without someone seriously watching over them. And whoever that is, will have some serious work to do in order to get the best for the department. Cops are trained to push peopl…

> Sadly, in my own experience, Policing and tech are never done terribly well.

This is a poor example of the two cultures not getting along. No IT person worth his salt would ever allow someone to come in and start deploying one off applications like this in a 911 call center of all places.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#15

Post by jharger »

pascalmemories wrote: post #11
metric10 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reason he blew up was because any changes to the way 911 operators worked had to be approved. Wow. What I can't believe was that he was allowed to resign and wasn't fired on the spot.

You read the story quite differently from me. I don't think he changed how they operated at all. He gave them a program which highlighted the most critical calls for most urgent attention. That's EXACTLY how 911 operators are SUPPOSED to operate. CAD systems are supposed to do that but it can be difficult to properly do that when lots of calls come in - and when a really critical calls does come in, it frequently is…

I don't know that much about 911 dispatch centers, but highlighting calls as more important definitely sounds like a change in the operation procedures of the center, and definitely sounds like it should have been approved first.

Can you imagine the PR nightmare the captain would have had to deal with if someone died or was severely injured because one of the calls wasn't highlighted when it should have been? I think the captain was right here.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#16

Post by MichaelGG »

metric10 wrote: post #4
arcticfox wrote: post #2

From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.

And the reason he blew up was because any changes to the way 911 operators worked had to be approved. Wow. What I can't believe was that he was allowed to resign and wasn't fired on the spot.

In 2005 I was creating a national 9-1-1 company for VoIP. It's understandable why people would be so conservative given the stakes. (Though sometimes they laughably underestimate the fragility they introduce, like initiatives to hook up every PSAP to the Internet and route calls that way.)

One PSAP in particular was very upset with our service. He insisted that we do not connect "Internet calls" to his PSAP, as "there might be viruses or something". Note that this was simply dialing the 10-digit number that's part of the public network - anyone can dial it.

Though it's hard to tell from the article if this was really just a procedural issue ("great software, but you must clear it and run through this checklist") or territorial/political.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#17

Post by btilly »

ihsw wrote: post #5
arcticfox wrote: post #2

From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.

It seems pretty clear that the captain wasn't dismissing the helpfulness but rather dismissing Clemans' authority to deploy the project. It's a power play, and Clemans' disdain for rigid power structures clearly contributed to the friction between him and the SPD administration. EDIT: the captain's response is not unwarranted at all. Emergency response call centers are a critical public resource and he is ultimately…

What is worse, it is not even clear that the captain is entirely wrong here.

If Clemans screwed up, he had the potential to have 911 calls be routed to /dev/null. If he succeeded, the department became more efficient. However the 911 system is already working "well enough". Therefore in terms of outside perception any win will be small, and disasters could be huge.

He is not the one who has been give the authority to make this kind of risk decision. The captain is. If Clemans screwed up, the captain would be the one getting fired. Keeping the captain out of the loop is irresponsible. It doesn't matter that it worked. It doesn't matter how good the system is. You need to work with stakeholders, and not behind their backs.

However Clemans seems like the kind of person who can never understand this point.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#18

Post by HillRat »

squidfood wrote: post #3

Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").

I suppose it's slightly better than the usual alternative of ignoring, or suing, the outsiders, but yeah, this was pretty predictable. He's obviously a gifted programmer, but developing new software for a division without evidently consulting (let alone including) the stakeholders was obviously going to cause some kind of reaction. It sounds like he didn't have a manager to handle the politics (which is odd; most large public safety departments I've seen have their own IT staff separate from the rest of the city), and is tactless if not outright on the spectrum, so kind of an inevitable parting of the ways. Nice that SPD was so gracious on his leaving, though.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#19

Post by danso »

I have to say...I'm very impressed that he lasted that long. And I think credit has to be given to both Clemans and the Seattle PD...Clemans, obviously, for putting his skill and ingenuity toward the public good. But also, to the police for not only being open to change, but willingly bringing in someone who so openly antagonized them. Given the amount of political ego in most police organizations...6 months of collaboration is pretty astonishing.

Even if the Seattle PD were at fault, the onus is on them to either adopt or ignore what Tim has done for them...sometimes the attention and public scrutiny is enough to change things, so I wouldn't see Tim's departure as the end of it. It doesn't have to be be, at least, and hopefully other Seattle civic hackers have been inspired by his work.

Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months

#20

Post by buffportion »

pascalmemories wrote: post #7

Unfortunately, policing culture is very territorial and operates at extreme levels of testosterone fueled territory marking. A tech-nerd (with possibly some autistic traits from the descriptions) is never going to get along in that environment without someone seriously watching over them. And whoever that is, will have some serious work to do in order to get the best for the department. Cops are trained to push peopl…

"Cops are trained to push peoples buttons and make them lose control"

They are? I could see why, say, detectives interviewing a suspect might use that approach to try to get them to say something incriminating, but for regular cops I would think their job is made much easier if the people they interact with are calm.

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