OLYMPIA, WA - In what appears to be a brazen move to steer a contract for a police use of force database to Washington State University, the only college or university to submit a bid, a competing bidder is accusing an official with the State Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and a Washington State University professor of stealing the company’s proprietary information and copyrighted materials.
The Everett Post, citing The Center Square, reported that the database is being developed through the Washington State AGO. The competing bidder, Bob Scales, CEO of Police Strategies, ultimately withdrew from bidding on the project due to a number of stipulations, including a requirement that they hand over intellectual property. State officials, meanwhile, claim Scales is attempting to hinder the project.
In 2022, a proposal was put out by the AGO via Senate Bill 5259 for the project. Scales participated in the legislative process surrounding the bill, however withdrew for the aforementioned reasons.
Scales has since accused the AGO and WSU employees of collusion with the intent to ensure the university’s bid would be selected. Putting police use of force databases in the hands of left-leaning universities would likely ensure that liberal lawmakers, which comprise a majority of the Washington State legislature, would achieve the results they were looking for, he claims.
Scales has also accused WSU President Kirk Schultz of interfering in his ethics complaint filed against WSU Professor David Makin, who submitted the university’s bid and is one of the recipients of a July 1 cease-and-desist letter sent by Scales on July 1.
Scales has hit a brick wall with his ethics complaints, with all of them having been either dismissed or are no longer under investigation.
Scales sent a letter to Makin and AGO Senior Policy Analyst Kelly Richburg, in which he told them Police Strategies developed a system known as Police Force Analysis System, or PFAS, a system that has been used by over 100 law enforcement agencies to analyze use of force events. The system includes copyrighted legal algorithms and other proprietary information, The Everett Post says.
“The copyrighted data elements and legal algorithms used in PFAS are unique, and they are not found in any other use of force data collection system,” Scales wrote.
Scales alleges WSU and the AGO are planning to use the proprietary and copyrighted data elements in the Washington State Data Exchange for Public Safety, known as “WADEPS,” noting the project intended to use data elements and descriptions not found in the Senate bill, nor in the advisory group's recommendations, but are contained in PFAS.
“WADEPS has taken this single data element from the Advisory Group and created five new data elements that were taken directly from the copyrighted PFAS system,” Scales continued. “Not only have WSU and the AGO violated copyright laws, they have also violated state law by creating these new data elements that were not authorized by SB 5259 or approved by the AGO Advisory Group.
The Center Square reached out to WSU for comment, and only received a response from Marketing and Communications Vice President Phil Weiler who said, “Washington State University has received this letter and are reviewing it now.”
Meanwhile, AGO Deputy Communications Director Dan Jackson wrote in an email that “this individual [Scales] sought to become a subcontractor on this project. When the sole bidding University did not select him, he launched this campaign full of allegations, public records requests, lawsuits, and threats in an effort to delay the project.”
Jason Rantz of KTTH Radio reported this week that Scales has filed a $42 million tort claim for violations of Washington State’s Criminal Profiteering Act and the federal RICO Act.
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