The Long Beach Police Department is under investigation for using a controversial cell phone app that can delete text messages.
The LA Times reports that the Los Angeles district attorney’s Justice System Integrity Division, the collective responsible for reviewing matters of law enforcement misconduct, officer-involved shootings, and deaths in police custody, are investigating the Department’s use of an app called TigerText.
Long Beach police came under heavy criticism this week after an Al Jazeera report revealedthe department’s use of the app. In the report, two anonymous city police officers said they were instructed by superiors to use the app to “have conversations with other officers that wouldn’t be discoverable” in criminal or civil filings.
According to the city, the TigerText application is installed on 145 of the 291 cellphones issued by the department. That includes the phones of the command staff, as well as homicide and internal affairs investigators. The law enforcement agency employs 1,214 workers and has used the app since 2014.
Tiger text currently costs the city of Long Beach $10,000 per year to use. The app erases messages after 5 days. The ACLU has reportedly sent a letter to the LBPD demanding they discontinue use of the app immediately.