Tinted windows and hydraulic lowriders are so … 1990s.

One of the latest trends in custom car modifications goes way beyond style —and some say it could cause a dangerous panic among pedestrians.

The modification usually involves removing portions of a car’s exhaust system and “tuning” the computer that regulates a car’s fuel combustion to produce loud pops and flashes that fire like gunshots out of the vehicle’s tailpipe. On social media sites like Instagram, the I-Team found dozens of videos demonstrating straight pipe exhaust systems that have been altered using techniques called “straight piping” and “two-step” modifications.

Pedestrians said they could imagine a dangerous mass panic if one of the customized cars rolled past a crowded street.

“I’d freak out,” said Linda Marullo, a New Yorker walking through Times Square.

Teresa Leung, a Canadian visiting New York, watched the Instagram videos in disbelief…

If you’re walking in Bloomfield, New Jersey, there’s a good chance you’re being recorded. But it’s not a corporate office or warehouse security camera capturing the footage — it’s likely a Ring doorbell made by Amazon .

While residential neighborhoods aren’t usually lined with security cameras , the smart doorbell’s popularity has essentially created private surveillance networks powered by Amazon and promoted by police departments.

Police departments across the country, from major cities like Houston to towns with fewer than 30,000 people, have offered free or discounted Ring doorbells to citizens, sometimes using taxpayer funds to pay for Amazon’s products. While Ring owners are supposed to have a choice on providing police footage, in some giveaways, police require recipients to turn over footage when requested.

Ring said Tuesday that it would start cracking down on those strings attached…

Christina Wilcox hears the blast of gunfire echo through her Shawnee neighborhood a few times a week.

She’s learned to quickly assess the threat: Are her kids safe? Doors locked? Should she drop to the ground?

Not a consideration: calling the police.

“I don’t do nothing wrong and I’m going to keep it like that,” she said. “I don’t want them coming to my door and someone down the street sees and thinks I’m saying something.”

This unwillingness to alert police to shootings is not uncommon, and police know it. That’s why in 2017 the Louisville Metro Police Department installed ShotSpotter, an array of microphones across six square miles of the city designed to listen for gunfire and automatically notify officers.

But a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting analysis of police data shows the system provides no guarantee police will stay on the scene very long — or actually investigate.

Officers conduct required surveys of the area on fewer than two out of every 10 ShotSpotter calls, according to data from the police department and the city’s MetroSafe 911 service. The calls rarely lead to an arrest.

The officers typically clear scenes within minutes, and they seldom find evidence of a shooting, according to police data.

As Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer looks to free up $35 million to pay for the city’s growing pension obligation, he is threatening to get rid of ShotSpotter. The service costs $390,000 for technical assistance, system maintenance and data storage, according to the city’s contract with the San Francisco-based company. To date, the city has paid more than $1.2 million for the service.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad said recently that, combined with other proposed police cuts, losing ShotSpotter would cause “bleeding” and contribute to a “slow train wreck” for public safety in Louisville.

LMPD spokesperson Jessie Halladay said the arrests ShotSpotter brings are a crime deterrent and a lot of the gunshots it alerts police to aren’t reported. She speculated that more officers probably do surveys than the data shows, but they forget to report them.

But some experts question whether the lack of tangible benefits make the service worth the cost…

Washington, DC
CNN Business
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An audit of the Los Angeles police department is raising questions about new technologies law enforcement is using nationwide with little oversight.

Last week, the department’s internal auditors, prompted by a community backlash, published online a review of the LAPD’s data-driven policing strategies and recommended more transparency, consistency and oversight of the programs. Los Angeles has been a leader in using new technologies such as artificial intelligence, social networks and big data to aid police work.

However, those new approaches have been controversial, and criticized for violating civil rights and discriminating against minority groups. Experts have also questioned whether they deliver enough value given their financial costs, which can exceed hundreds of thousands of dollars…

In Philly, Most Armed Robbers Remain Beyond the Long Arm of the Law…

Project Green Light, a controversial 3-year-old surveillance program that has been touted as a major crime stopper by the Detroit Police Department, will make its entry into the city’s public housing program by year’s end.

The program, which installs cameras at participating locations that feed into the city’s Real Time Crime Center, has raised questions about privacy and lacks a comparative study showing that it actually stops crime.

The Detroit Housing Commission and police are ironing out an agreement that will bring 26 “real time” cameras to Sheridan Place I and II, two high-rise towers on Jefferson Avenue just south of Belle Isle that cater to an “elderly and near-elderly community.”

In the 73rd precinct in Brownsville, reporting a crime goes like this: you step through a brick entryway into a cramped, dimly-lit room and you wait there, staring at a wall.

A set of double doors and a window break up the metal barrier, but red-lettered signs remind you that you aren’t allowed to go through. On the other side of the plexiglass, police dash around the station’s spacious interior. They pay little mind to the lobby, where the four plastic seats are often taken, leaving everyone else to stand on the stained linoleum.

An officer comes to help, eventually. He opens the door halfway to ask people what they need, one by one. But therein lies another problem: the tiny, triangular waiting room has no privacy. So, everyone can hear every fearful crack in an old man’s voice as he tells how he’s lost $2,700 to an online scam. And they can see every tear on a woman’s face when she rushes into the precinct after learning that her child is in trouble…