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Weeks after his retirement from public employment, San Ramon’s former police chief is finding himself back in local police stations once again – but this time in a new capacity, as a civilian and representative for a San Francisco-based tech company.
When Denton Carlson was concluding his 27-year career in law enforcement – culminating in three years at the helm of the San Ramon Police Department – in early December, he said he was not necessarily on the market for a new endeavor.
But that all changed following a series of conversations with the CEO and founder of Longeye, an AI startup offering a platform aimed at helping detectives, prosecutors and public defenders contend with the mounting quantities of digital evidence at their fingertips in quantities that can sometimes hinder, rather than help, fulfill their duties.
“Because of what I see this platform can do, my goal is to get it into as many law enforcement agencies and as many DA’s offices, and ultimately as many public defenders’ offices as possible, because it’s really just going to change the perspective and change how digital evidence is analyzed throughout the whole criminal justice system,” Carlson said in an interview with DanvilleSanRamon.
While the increased ubiquity of cellphones and other smart devices and the rise of digital data collection in general over the past two decades have allowed police and prosecutors to find evidence and solve cases they otherwise might not have been able to, that has come at a cost, Carlson said.
“I was a detective before the mountains of digital evidence really started coming into play,” Carlson said. “About 15 years ago when I was at the desk and I was investigating all these different crimes – I remember back then, we were investigating some specific cases and we were listening to the jail calls that suspects were making in custody. Even then, it got to be so cumbersome.”
As a detective, Carlson said he used to spend his commutes listening to audio evidence, which was “the only possible way” to keep up with the volume of files available at that time.
With the rise of cellphones, there is even more evidence at detectives’ fingertips, some of which can be crucial to investigations – but much of which is not, something Carlson said was a major factor in investigating cases such as the two high-profile robberies at Heller Jewelers in San Ramon over the past three years.
“Both of those cases had massive amounts of digital evidence with them, because you start writing search warrants for cellphones, and search warrants for data, iCloud accounts,” Carlson said.
While digital evidence played a key role in the investigation of the 2023 robbery that led to the conviction of five men more than a year and a half later – despite their efforts to evade authorities – the vast amount of digital evidence now available has outpaced the capacities of humans throughout the criminal justice system, Carlson said.
“None of us want to see someone wrongly accused or wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit,” Carlson said. “Cases are being lost right now, and on the defense side when it comes to criminal cases, there may well be evidence that is being lost by the public defender’s office as well.”
More recently, automated license plate readers and other advancements in surveillance technology have given police even more potential evidence to sift through, and given Carlson experience considering the risks and benefits of new technology in law enforcement.
“That really changed everything, and in reality, some of the major cases that we have in San Ramon, I don’t know that we would have been able to solve those without those advancements in technology,” Carlson said.
But just as importantly, he noted, was ensuring that new technology is implemented in a way that reduces potential harms.
“I think if you introduce AI into the law enforcement world, it has to be done with the proper safeguards to make sure that it’s being done ethically and it’s being done responsibly,” Carlson said.
With that ethos in mind, Carlson said that he had never expected to find himself working for an AI startup – but that speaking with its founder and other leaders ultimately changed his mind.
“Right around a month from when I was going to be retired, the CEO and founder of Longeye just randomly reached out and said ‘hey, what are your plans?'” Carlson said.
That inquiry led to a phone conversation and further talks at the company’s downtown San Francisco office, culminating in Carlson’s new role as its public safety ambassador, a role he and founder Guillaume Delepine developed specifically to leverage the former SRPD chief’s expertise in both law enforcement and public outreach.
“Really what got me was their passion for it, and just their excitement for what they’d created, their enthusiasm for what they were going to do – it was just contagious,” Carlson said.
It wasn’t just the contagious sense of enthusiasm – a common driving factor at AI startups and public companies alike – but safeguards against concerns about the rise of AI, specifically accuracy and bias when it comes to its use in law enforcement.
“Inherently, AI will fill in the gaps,” Carlson said. “This is designed not to fill any gaps, because it’s not pulling any information outside of the evidence that’s submitted, and it’s only comparing that evidence that’s submitted against the case details.”
“It’s all internal,” he continued. “It’s a self-hosted system, and it’s an AI system that’s created from the ground up by Longeye. It’s not filling in the gaps with misinformation, because it’s only pulling an AI against the evidence that’s submitted.”
While Carlson said he believes SRPD – and other law enforcement agencies across the country – could benefit from the new tool, he noted that the department is no longer under his purview, with decision-making now in the hands of its new chief Becky Chestnut.
Currently, Longeye’s technology is only being actively used by one agency: the Redmond Police Department in Washington state, where it was introduced last fall. But Carlson aims to change that, and pointed to one example of it already being put to use in the Bay Area.
Carlson said he spoke with a South San Francisco Police Department sergeant during a demonstration last week who agreed with his assessment of the product: “This is going to change everything.”
“We were in the door, demonstrated Longeye to their detectives, trained them up, and had their detectives operating in platform within 90 minutes,” Carlson said.
During the visit, SSFPD detectives uploaded 25 hours worth of audio files associated with an attempted homicide case they were investigating.
“In under five minutes, Longeye found a recording (in Spanish) in which the suspect told his girlfriend about his interview with SSFPD detectives and instructed her to connect with his co-defendant’s girlfriend to ensure their alibis lined up so it would be harder to pin the crime, and several other robberies, on him,” Carlson said. “From demo to training to evidence found. It all happened in a two-hour period while we were on-site at SSFPD.”
Chief Carlson is the best! Looking forward to him in this next role. Longeye is lucky to have someone so well respected and of impeccable character!