In 2002, the DC Sniper attacks changed the way millions thought about public safety. They also changed the trajectory of my career. I was a crime analyst in the Washington, DC area, and the lessons I took from that case have stayed with me for more than 20 years. A thread 🧵

Bought The Bomber Mafia on this trip and finished it before I got home. Big takeaway: innovation is never just about better technology. As a former crime analyst, I saw this firsthand. Better information only matters if people can find it, trust it, understand it, and act on it. Now in police tech and sales, I see the same lesson from the other side. The best ideas live between vision and execution. Execution is where it gets real.

Everybody seems to have an opinion on ALPR these days, and I promised myself I wouldn’t chime in. But I realized something today that I haven’t seen mentioned in the debate. The current predicament around ALPR, and @flocksafety in general, was likely preventable. As a former crime analyst who has used this type of technology, I think much of the public concern comes from misconceptions about how these systems are actually used. But that doesn’t mean vendors get a pass when misuse happens. At a previous company, we had an independent third party team that audited user activity in our system. As a sales rep, I hated it. Customers would call frustrated because they were being asked to explain searches or activity flagged during an audit. It created friction. It created uncomfortable conversations. And sometimes it felt like we were making life harder for our own customers. But there was a reason for it. We weren’t just protecting the company. We were protecting the integrity of the system, the agencies using it, and ultimately the public’s trust in the technology. I’d bet that if Flock could go back in time, they would seriously consider building something similar from the beginning. Because once agencies start conducting their own audits and uncovering misuse, the conversation stops being only about whether the technology is valuable. It becomes about whether people can trust how it’s being used. Law enforcement technology vendors have two customers: the agencies using their products and, indirectly, the communities those agencies serve. Our responsibility isn’t simply to build powerful tools. It’s to build the guardrails that help ensure those tools remain worthy of trust.

I would have lost a lot of money betting against DFR. A few years ago, I thought Drone as First Responder was one of those ideas being pushed harder by vendors than pulled by law enforcement. Cool technology? Absolutely. Practical at scale? I was skeptical. Boy, was I wrong. As the @nrtcca Conference kicks off in Phoenix this week, I keep thinking about how quickly the Real-Time Crime Center movement has evolved. RTCCs aren’t just rooms full of screens anymore. They’re becoming operational hubs where video, ALPR, CAD, drones, analytics, intelligence and people come together to help agencies make better decisions faster. And DFR may be one of the clearest examples of how quickly that evolution is happening. After 15 years as a crime analyst and now working in public safety technology, I’ve learned a useful lesson: Be careful assuming you know which technologies will stick. Sometimes the market tells you you’re wrong. The smart move is to listen. For those headed to Phoenix for #NRTCCA: What RTCC technology or trend has surprised you the most?

Politics aside, this has always been one of my biggest pet peeves as a crime analyst: Crime ↓: “Our strategies are working.” Crime ↑: “Crime is complex and influenced by many factors.” You can’t have it both ways. I spent 15 years analyzing crime, and one thing I learned quickly is that crime trends rarely have a single explanation. Effective policing absolutely matters. But so do demographics, economics, opportunity, social conditions, reporting practices, offender behavior, and countless other factors. Good crime analysis requires intellectual honesty in both directions. Celebrate decreases. Study what worked. But if you wouldn’t attribute the increase entirely to yourself, be careful taking credit for the decrease.

AI hasn’t made me smarter. It’s made me faster. I use it every day to research, prepare for meetings, pressure-test ideas, and turn rough thoughts into something useful. But the biggest thing I’ve learned about AI has nothing to do with prompting. AI is most valuable when you already know what questions to ask. My background as an analyst taught me to look for patterns, challenge assumptions, and separate signal from noise. Sales taught me to understand the audience and communicate what actually matters. AI lets me do both at a speed that wasn’t possible a few years ago. The advantage isn’t having access to AI. Everyone has access. The advantage is learning how to think with it.

A mistake I’ve seen throughout my career: We confuse sharing information with communicating. Sending the email isn’t communicating. Posting the bulletin isn’t communicating. Putting something in a CRM isn’t communicating. Communication happened when the right person saw it, understood it, and knew what to do next. There’s a big difference.

I spent 15 years as a crime analyst before I ever carried a sales quota. Turns out, the two jobs have a lot in common. Ask better questions. Find the real problem. Separate signal from noise. Know your audience. Being right isn’t enough. You have to communicate why it matters.

10/ I've spent much more time consuming on X than contributing. That's changing. If you work in public safety, technology, sales, leadership, or somewhere in between, I'd love to connect. And I'll probably tell a few good crime-analysis stories along the way.

9/ I'll be talking about the things at the intersection of my careers: • Public safety technology • Crime & intelligence analysis • Sales and GTM • Leadership • AI and innovation • Building teams • Selling into government • Lessons learned along the way

8/ That journey eventually took me from: Crime analyst → analyst manager → public safety technology → sales → sales leadership. And it's why I'm starting to write here.

7/ Both require you to listen. Ask better questions. Find the real problem. Separate signal from noise. Communicate complicated ideas simply. And ultimately help someone make a better decision.

6/ Eventually, I left crime analysis and moved into the private sector. At first glance, crime analysis and technology sales might seem like completely different careers. I've discovered they're much more connected than you might think.

5/ They also taught me something I wouldn't fully appreciate until years later: A great insight that doesn't reach the right person at the right time has very little value. Analysis is partly about data. But it's also about communication and influence.

4/ Good analysis isn't simply finding information. It's determining: What matters? What connects? What are we missing? Who needs to know? And how quickly can we get the right information into their hands? Those questions followed me throughout my career.

3/ Multiple jurisdictions. Different investigators. Thousands of tips. Witness descriptions. Crime reports. Vehicle information. Timelines. Geography. And an overwhelming amount of info that had to somehow be turned into intelligence. That lesson has never left me.

2/ Most people remember pieces of the DC Sniper story. The shootings. The fear. The white van. The eventual arrests. But the case is even more fascinating when you look at it through the eyes of an analyst. It was an enormous information problem.