Public safety app Citizen coming to Pittsburgh, draws concerns
The Citizen app is a crowdsourced public safety app that's been around for nearly a decade in other major cities. Pittsburgh gets added to the app June 20. Its creators say Citizen's mission is to make things safer, but some fear it could do the opposite.
'Your job as a citizen is to step away,' said Beth Pittinger, executive director of Pittsburgh's Citizen Police Review Board. 'Get out of the way. Don't create a situation where you could be hurt, other innocent civilians could be hurt, and the police officers could be hurt.'
Pittinger says she has concerns about the Citizen app coming to Pittsburgh.
Pittinger added, 'This whole notion that somehow this is empowering. It's undermining our public safety system, and if we need to change aspects of that, then we should do it together as a community through the proper channels.'
Coming up on Channel 11 News at 11, what the company and actual citizens have to say about the app and the controversy surrounding it.
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