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Protecting the Public with Lt. Mike Ricupero

Steve interviews Lieutenant Commander Detective Michael Ricupero of the NYPD

This is Season 3, Episode 29 and I had the distinct honor of speaking with a true crime fighter and community leader, Lieutenant Commander Detective Michael Ricupero of the New York Police Department.

Lieutenant Ricupero oversees the facial recognition section and specialty units that fall under the NYPD’s Real-Time Crime Center. Lieutenant Ricupero has a unique skill set that includes expertise in law enforcement, link analysis, facial recognition, law, and social media. He frequently features in press and media for the crime center.

In our conversation, we cover his early career and how he came to join the police department. We also discuss how the NYPD’s RTCC is fighting crime and protecting the public. We dive into use cases for face recognition and weapons detection as well as New York’s new public safety program CONNECT NEW YORK.

RESOURCES:

Connecting with Lt. Mike Ricupero

Mike Ricupero’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-ricupero-9144381a6/

NYPD website: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/index.page

Companies & Resources Discussed

NYPD Real Time Crime Center is a centralized, technology-driven support center which uses state-of-the-art technology, such as facial recognition and link-analysis software, to provide instant, vital information to detectives and other officers at the scene of a crime. More informaiton can be found here and here

NewYorkCityConnect.org is a new public safety program enabling the people of New York City to help keep their community safe. The video of Lt. Ricupero introducing and explaining the program can be found on the home page.

POST Act is The Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act and requires the NYPD to publish impact and use policies for the surveillance technologies used by the Department.

Fusus is an open and unified intelligence ecosystem that integrates and enhances all public safety and investigations assets for law enforcement, first responders, and private security personnel.

Rank One (a.k.a. ROC) is the only American-made multimodal biometrics and computer vision provider, ROC is trusted by the U.S. military, law enforcement, and leading FinTech brands.

DataWorks Plus provides hardware and software systems and support for a wide range of identification, biometric recognition, security, and data capturing services.

HITDA or High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program, created by Congress with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, provides assistance to Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States.

HBO Max’s Real Time Crime Episode one is called Run Junior / Neighborhood Watch and is discussed in this podcast.FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Steve Craig: Welcome to the PEAK IDV EXECUTIVE SERIES video podcast, where I speak with executives, leaders, founders, and change makers in the digital identity space. I'm your host, Steve Craig, Founder and Chief Enablement Officer at PEAK IDV. For our audience, this is a video first series. So if you're enjoying the audio version, please check out the video recording on executiveseries.peakidv.com, where you can watch this full episode, read the transcript, and access any resources or links that come up in today's conversation. 

This is episode number 29 of season three, and I'm thrilled to introduce this week's guest. He is Lieutenant Detective Commander Michael Ricupero of the New York City Police Department. Lieutenant Ricupero oversees the facial recognition section and the specialty units that fall under the NYPD's Real Time Crime Center. Lieutenant Ricupero has served nearly 20 years in the police department and was assigned to the RTCC in 2016. He's got a unique skill set, which includes expertise in law enforcement, link analysis, facial recognition, law, social media, and he frequently features in press and media for the Crime Center. Welcome. Thank you so much for making the time to be on the podcast. 

Michael Ricupero: Steve, thank you so much for having me. Really going to enjoy this. I really am. 

Steve: Excellent. Well, I see that you have a different shirt on. I was trying to wear my NYPD hoodie to fit in. What's the shirt that you're wearing? 

Michael: I love it. I like your shirt. I love the-- you know, that's an original one. That's original. I love the original stuff. I'm actually wearing from my--  the association, which I belong to, it's the National Real Time Crime Center Association. I'm actually on the advisory board for the Crime Center for this association. It's a nonprofit, which we help other crimes centers establish themselves. If they're not established, if they may have any questions about starting up a crime center, we help them. We obviously don't charge them any money or anything like that. We're just here to help and build that network. It was started about four years ago at 3, 4 years ago on the west side, on the California side, Elk Grove.

Since then we have over-- right now in the United States-- over 300 plus real time crime centers and now all over the world-- Australia, England, Canada is getting very big with crime centers now. So the concept is evolving, which is nice to see. We just had our conference in Arizona and we were overbooked. We had to turn people away. That's how people are interested in the concept of the real time crime center and the technology that comes with it. 

Steve: That's amazing. I think anyone watching this episode knows New York City, they know NYPD, but can you share more what real time crime centers are, what they do?

Michael: Real time crime centers are exactly what that word is. We try to act-- react in real time, right? So, as soon as the job happens we get moving. We do our data checks. We do a location analysis. We listen to the 911 audio. We dissect it. Anything that we could give and of course, the most important thing we do is probably look at cameras right away if we have any cameras in that area.

So we could give that to the patrol officers in the field. Because if it's a-- let's say a shooting-- we want them to know what the shooter may be wearing. If we have that video, it's very important. All the checks and everything we do, we upload it to our case management system. So when the detectives get back from doing all their groundwork, all that great work that they do, they could see that in the case management system. They can see all the work that my detectives have done.

And so, kind of like the geek squad for the, you know, for the department, but I don't mind that. I love it. 

Steve: Yeah, that's very cool. Very cool. And I definitely want to deep dive into some topics around the Real Time Crime Center, but this is EXECUTIVE SERIES. So I want to understand a little bit more about you and your background. In researching for this episode I see you joined the department in 2005. Had you always wanted to be in law enforcement?  

Michael: No, I will say no. Went to school for web design. I wanted to be a web developer. So after, you know, Y2K, all the web-- websites, everyone was wanting to be a web creator. I did some work, but nothing really that I saw myself doing in the future.

So I said, you know what? I want to be a firefighter, right? After 9/11, you know, firefighters and cops really did motivate me to do service to have, you know, and have a job that I could be proud of. And that's exactly what I did. So I took the firefighter test. I took the police officer test. And I said, whatever, which one calls me first they're the winner. 

So NYPD called me first. And so happened to be that three years after I was a cop in Brooklyn, I got called by the fire department saying that they wanted to hire me. So I had a decision to make. And, I always tell, you know, my wife was my girlfriend at the time. She did not want me to be a firefighter.

And I said, well, I rather, I said, “you'd rather me go into burning buildings or possibly get shot at?” She goes, “I don't like the thought of-- you go into a burning building.” I'm like, okay, no problem. So I stayed on the job. It was the best move I actually ever made. After that, I passed the sergeant's test. And then, I was a five year sergeant, which is, they call us five year wonders, right? So I'm telling like 40 year old people what to do-- cops. I'm 20 years old, telling them-- giving them orders, what to do. But, you know, it was a great learning experience. I learned so much from it. Even to this day, I try to help some young supervisors in the field.

And after that, when I got assigned to the Crime Center as a sergeant, I studied for the lieutenant's test. Took me a couple of tries-- two tries, and then I passed the lieutenant's test. I went back out in the field for a year, and then they asked me where I want to come back, and I said, I want to go home. I want to go where my skill set was, where I learned to do all this. So I've been there since 2021. So three years I've been back as a lieutenant managing the Crime Center. 

Steve: Excellent. Well, looking at the Real Time Crime Center's history, I see it was started in July, 2005. Is that about right? How long the…?

Michael: Actually, I came on January 10 of 2005. Real Time Crime Center, we are the first if it's kind, unique in every way. And, you know, still to this day, almost 20 years later, we're still going strong. We're still evolving. I'm still trying to bring in some cutting edge technology that's going to help save lives and catch criminals. That's what I always say. 

Steve: What was your experience like in those first days and months when you were getting to know the technology that the department was deploying in the Real Time Crime Center? Were you just mind boggled or like, tell me about that. 

Michael: Well, you know, it was a learning experience, right? Because I was a patrol sergeant for so long. I did midnights, I did the plain clothes conditions and everything like that. Now I'm in a corporate world, technically, right? It's like corporate world. Everyone's in suits, very talented people, detectives that had so much time on and everyone is a sworn officer in my Crime Center.

So all these detectives were so much time on so much talent and I was like a sponge. I just, I sat with them and I learned. I learned everything that they wanted to teach me, you know, it was a little overwhelming at first, right? So all these databases I'm writing down that we have access to but, you know, I took one day at a time. One day and I studied and I learned everything I could there. And  now I'm teaching people what I learned, what they-- what I was taught, right? So it's-- kind of goes around and around. Right. So it's a great thing. 

Steve: Yeah, I envision this, like Men In Black experience where you're Will Smith coming into it and then, you know, going down that elevator.

Michael: Everyone always wants to come in to the room that no one knows about, right? But it's, you know, it's special to me. It's not like that, but, you know, a lot of great detectives came through that door and still are in there today. And, I say I wouldn't be where I am now because of my detectives and my cops in the Crime Center. They make me look good-- very talented people. And the amount of work they do, the amount of great work they do to help people every day is-- no one knows about it, you know? But that's okay, because I let them know that they did a great job. 

Steve: What are some of the misconceptions that you hear from colleagues or the general public about the Crime Center? Is it-- you have like special gadgets in there, you've got, you know, NSA level technology? Like what are some of the things you've heard? 

Michael: Big brother, you know, we're surveilling people, you know? Because if you watch, you know, TV, and they have all these special gadgets, they think like, “you know, we know who exactly everyone is and we're following people” and we're not doing that. That's not something with-- what we do. I am a firm believer and being transparent with the public and let them know the technology we are using.

So, if you go to our POST Act-- so POST Act was developed by the city council wanted us to tell the public exactly what we're using. And if any new technology comes in, we have to let them know. There's a 90-day period if I want to bring in a new technology that the public could actually comment on it. And then we could have a forum about it. 

But since then, you know, if you go to POST Act New York city, if you can just Google POST Act, it'll tell you everything the NYPD uses. There's no secret stuff here, even though a lot of, you know, organizations think we do. I had no problem answering out to anything they may have any issues with, right? But that's not what we do. You know, we're not breaking the rules. We're doing everything the legal way, because, you know, even though… I am a firm believer in people's rights, and I don't want to infringe on people's rights, their privacy. I'm very big on that, even my family, so I wouldn't do that to anyone else.

Steve: Well, I'll be sure to include a link to that site so anyone who's listening, they can go to the EXECUTIVE SERIES page and get linked there. I'm curious, we're recording this in the early part of October 2024, what does the sensory landscape look like? Are these CCTVs, body cams, traffic cams, like, what type of data inputs are in that list?

Michael: We try to leverage every-- anything that the department procures, right? So, body cameras are huge for us because even with biometrics, you know, we use it. We use these by these body cam feeds just to see what a person may look like in the present day, right? Because we may have an old photo of them. You know, that comes up in an algorithm and what are investigative steps that we do. One of the steps is look at body cam if they're available. CCTV, you know, businesses out there. I just started a program with Exxon, Fusus, it's a business integration of their cameras. If they want to, it's all permission based. If they-- you know, and it's free to the businesses. So it's a great program. It's starting to pick up very heavily because, the businesses, they want to help us. So this is their-- this was their opportunity to get into that. So it's kind of like you help us, we help you.

So believe it or not, the amount of people that want to sign up is-- its mind boggling the way it's going now and starting to pick up. I got so busy that I had to create a team. So I created a team. So, that website is also, NewYorkCityConnect.org has a video of me explaining it. And then there's also a registration part that people could register their cameras if they live in a residential area.

And it just, it's going to change the way detectives do a camera canvas. And it's going to streamline investigations. We're already seeing very positive outcomes for what we're doing. And to me, that's so worth it, so worth it. If we could catch criminals, save lives, like I said before, that's my main job.

So, you know, always improving our cameras, of course. We're always looking for the newest technology. We haven't implemented really any AI yet in the New York City Police Department, I can say that. But we do everything the right way. We do it responsibly. And that's the way to go. And I'm a firm believer in that as well. 

Steve: So if you're a resident and you have like an Amazon Ring camera or one of these other, like for home security, you have the ability to connect that to the New York City's system. Is that what the connect program will do? 

Michael: The Ring camera, unfortunately is a motion sensitive camera. So it doesn't integrate, but they can register the camera. And I have mine registered. I was the first one to actually register my house cameras. So I'm not just, you know, I just don't talk-the-talk, I walk-the-walk. I want the police to know because I'm at home all the time, right? I don't know what happens over here. If something does happen, they know they could contact me by that access. 

But, the integrations again, the greatest thing about this is that I get to talk to the community and I get to tell them about the program and I get to tell them about this, all the success that we have with the program and it's free of charge.

New York City is not charging anyone to put this to stream the integration device to the encrypted site that we only, it's only a select few can see and it's confidential as well. So, you know, those crime reduction cameras that we have, they're great. They see from, you know, eye in the sky, but now that we're leveraging closer to a person or to a vehicle, you can make out more of the characteristics of the face, what they're wearing, what kind of shirt they're wearing. It's going to really change the way we streamline those investigations and get that information out a lot faster. 

Steve: Yeah, the camera quality has really improved in the last five years from [Michael: crazy] low res pixelated to now you've got these 4K night vision cameras that can [Michael: They see color. It's color. It's color.] color, yeah.

Michael: It's-- the 4K cameras are like a hundred dollars now on, on Amazon. 

Steve: Yeah, you can put them all around your property, which is great. More, more for…  

Michael: And now I saw 6Kand I'm like, all right, now you guys are getting a little out of control. Now let's, let's perfect 4K because I'm 1080P guy. Still 4K is good sometimes, you know?

Steve: On the actual crimes that you're detecting or pursuing in the Crime Center. I imagine this is not petty theft and misdemeanors, like are there certain classifications that would level-up to the Real Time Crime Center being warranted for an investigation or for maybe in real time preventing the crime?

Michael: So I don't like to tell people no. Because we are an assist unit, right? And that's not in my vocabulary. But most of the crimes that do come through are violent crimes. It's the seven majors, you know, murder, rape, burglary, robbery, shots fired jobs. It's a lot of high volume, you know, felonies.

Misdemeanors are turning into patterns now, so I don't like to shy away from those because I like to hit those hard too. But, you know, we see-- you know, we respond and we respond on the field as well. Not a lot of crime centers respond in the field. We have a van that we could take out there that we could do everything that we do in the Crime Center we could do in the field.

So we respond to terrorist attacks. I've been to a couple of active shooter situations, police involved shootings. You know, could have a barricaded prisoner, barricaded perp, so anything that we could help. We've actually gone out-- my investigators have actually gone out and made arrests right outside.

Yeah, so, every day-- and no day is like, you know, ordinary in the crime scene. You never know what's going to happen in New York City. 

Steve: In preparation for this interview, I watched this show that's on HBO Max called, Real Time Crime and they featured the NYPD center and part of that episode they covered the story of the murder of a 15 year old child, Alessandro Guzman Feliz, known as Junior. And the Real Time Crime Center had a really important role in bringing justice to Junior and his family. I'm curious if you could share details about that, if you were involved or if you know others that were?

Michael: I mean, I was a sergeant at the time in the Crime Center. And, you know, the investigators-- like I said, and I always say, like, you know, I oversee them, but they're the ones really doing the work. And what we did in that case is that we did social media dives and we would get, you know, the community was giving us a lot of great tips. Believe it or not, when something like that happens in New York City, the city comes together. And really they want to catch the criminals that did this. And this was that case right there. So we were getting, you know, some leads, some tips, looking at social media, then when we get some video from, you know, from that bodega, the video was pretty good. And so then we use our, you know, our facial identification section, our unit to ID 1 or 2 and then it just streamlined from there. Then we were looking at once we ID’d that person, which is always a possible lead. Just to let everyone know, it's not probable cause to make an arrest. It's just the lead. Then we would look into their social media and then we would see the other people that were involved, we could tell. And then we would do the-- the detective squad would request more facial rec. We did that. We gave them more leads and there was quite a few that were arrested in this whole thing. I think it was more than 10. I'm not sure they all got convicted. And they got-- most of them got life sentences, I think. The worst part about that was watching that video, over and over again, because, you know, it's-- I had to-- I had-- I didn't want to miss anything. The detectives didn't want to miss anything. So, you know, when they asked me to be on this, you know, to be on the show, I definitely wanted to do it right off the bat because I wanted to get my detectives and investigators that recognition that they did this. And they helped, you know, bring that family closure, You know, it was a horrible incident, very-- one of the worst I've ever seen.

Steve: Yeah, it was gut wrenching to watch. They had some of the actual footage there. I think they blurred parts of it, but it just shows…  

Michael: A block away from the hospital, too. He collapsed a block away from the hospital on the corner. 

Steve: That just breaks your heart when, when you see what had happened. Well, I'll be sure to link to that episode. I think it was a fascinating piece from HBO Max just in terms of what this center does and there's also other episodes for other departments around the country. No doubt your center has helped solve hundreds, maybe thousands of cases. Are there any more recent cases that you could share, perhaps in the last couple months? [Michael: Sure.] Something that you could, uh, tell us about? 

Michael: I mean every day we get, you know, we get, unfortunately, we get elderly attacks, you know. Stuff makes the paper all the time that we have a hand in, but we're the kind of unit that doesn't-- we don't need the recognition. You know, we don't need to be saying that “Oh, it's because of us.” You know, we just love-- you know, we're an assist unit. Like I said, that's, that's what we do. Unfortunately, the stuff that happens now, we-- you know, I can't really talk about until there's a conviction. You know, so those live cases, we can't talk about. But like, if you look up the Chelsea bombing and stuff like that, we had a big role in that.

You know, when the pipe bomb went off in the subway, you know, we helped, make the ID on that. And then the subway shooting in Brooklyn, you know, I was on that scene and that was probably the most chaotic scene I've ever been in in my 20 years in the NYPD because we had an active shooter that shot about 10, 11 people.

Thank God he didn't kill anyone, but we didn't know where this guy was, you know, because the the cameras were not working properly at that time. So we didn't know if he was, you know, going to come out of a sub--, you know, come out of an entrance. So we had to do a grid search around and, you know, it was a bunch of moving parts in that one.

So that was a great example of us doing what we do in the Crime Center. Doing our background checks in the field because we got that van and then we did some facial rec in that case too. So it was, it was great. You know, at the end of the day, he gave himself up like the next day. So we had him surrounded, you know, so he had no choice.

Steve: Yeah, when your face is suddenly all over the media and all over socials, it's where are you going to hide? You'll catch you anywhere you go. You know, where to go? You've mentioned a couple of times, this response van that you have. In preparing for the episode, I read an article about that, watched a video, this emergency mobile response van is dedicated to one of your fallen NYPD heroes, Detective Joseph Palillo. Is that Palillo?

Michael: Joe, Joe, Joe Pa, Joe Palillo. Yeah. 

Steve: Can you share more about this vehicle? Like what kind of technologies are leveraged? You mentioned a facial rec. 

Michael: Yeah. So we, I mean, we had an older van, but when I got back to the Crime Center, I wanted a newer one with new, some newer technology, newer computers, dual networks, cradle point. Two, you know, in case one connection goes out, we have another one right the and there. I learned from the Brooklyn shooting cell phones do not work in mass incidents and everyone's trying to use their phone, right? So I had to-- I wanted more than one network just in case one network was down I could try the other network, right? 

So the van was really built of the failures of the previous van and what we learned. And you know, we were doing grid searches on on pieces of paper. So we went into the school that was nearby that we-- we locked it down and we took in a clipboard and we were doing grid searches. Detectives using that, using-- printing out Google Maps.

And I'm like, when I got back, I was like, there's gotta be a better way. So now we're able-- we have a 55 inch surface hub in that. So now we could do a grid search right from there. It could be the command post and we could send the units, right? You know, we could draw on it and everything. And this is technology, right?

This is why I love emerging technology, because I just get those ideas. Every time I go out in the field, I'm thinking about this, thinking about that. So, I was like, yeah, I want to put that on that wall and then on the outside too. We could view video. Any sensitive video anytime we could. So the Police Foundation was a big part of that. They donated the money for us for that van, which they started the Real Time Crime Center. They give us the money to start the Real Time Crime Center. So the New York City Police Foundation I definitely owe a lot to. They do a lot of great things for the department, and they're very kind people.

So, you know, we dedicated-- I dedicated to Joe Pa, and Joe was one of the greatest detectives that we had in the Crime Center. He was a special personality. He probably would have yelled at me because I spent so much money on that van. But it was nice to have his wife Josephine there, and his family there at the dedication, and I felt like I did something.

That everyone should do, right? We never forget the heroes of our past. We always keep their memories alive. And that's-- that was my main goal in this. 

Steve: That's great. That's great. Well, I'd like to spend a little bit more time in the area of facial recognition. In particular, we were just talking about camera quality and data connections, and I'm sure you get this congestion, but when 5G works, it's pretty good on what you can get out of it. Are you seeing more cases that are leveraging 5G? The face technology to be able to either match or to update profiles, things like that. 

Michael: Well, the algorithms are so good now it's very-- they're very close. You know, we use Rank One, you know, I'm pretty content with their algorithm through DataWorks Plus, you know, and we're in the HITDA network too, as well.

But, what we're seeing is because of these cameras everywhere, we're seeing an influx in cases to the point that, you know, we're in, you know, last year we took in probably in the, from the 20 to 30,000, 20 to 25,000 cases range. To this year we may hit 30,000 requests, you know, and it's getting to the point that I have to upgrade my FIS unit, you know So there's a lot that comes with that, you know, I need approvals. They need training. I got to make sure they're trained. They do a three day remote FBI training and we do in house training and we do third-party training as well as we're starting this year I got to make sure even before they touch the case they are trained and they know everything about the face.

I don't play around when it comes to that stuff because, you know, it's great technology, but you know, one mess up and, you know, bad press, it's not good. They'll shut it down very easily. So, knock-on-wood, my team does a great job. I'm proud of the work they do every day. But I do see with all the technology coming out, it's just going to get even more and more.

You know, there's no crime out there that I don't-- that our detectives in the field cannot find that person somewhere in a video. You cannot pass a house anywhere you live in California or in New York without hitting a Ring camera or a Nest camera out there. So we're always looking at every type of video.

Steve: One of the ongoing themes of this podcast series and the conversations I have with executives, the biometric technology is this concern over facial recognition versus verification, versus surveillance, or you mentioned earlier, the big brother misconception. How do you feel about false matches and bias? Like, what are you doing to tackle these challenges that would lead to potentially bad press or maybe even a closed door on technology where you can't use something because of a misconception? 

Michael: Well, we don't use any algorithm that is not tested by NIST, right? The National Institute of Science and Technology. So, that's one of the things I do look at because they do test the algorithms for bias and racial discrepancies. And so that's number one. 

Number two, we just don't base everything on what the algorithm gives us, you know? They may give us a score, but we don't go by that. We go by each individual photo, and then when we think we may have a possible lead in a person, we do a peer to peer. We'll put it on the screen. We do a peer to peer with two investigators, and if they want to take it to the next step, which is the investigative steps, we do a comprehensive background check on that individual to make sure that at the time of the incident, were they arrested, were they somewhere else? Were they not in the country? Do they have any footprint by the scene of the crime that they were at? You know, do they live in Florida? Let's say they live in Florida. And I thought this person, and he has no, he's never been to Florida. He or she has never been to Florida. So there's an investigative checklist that we do. Knock-on-wood, we haven't had any false positives or anything like that in a very long time. Because if you look at it, it's just a lead. We don't say it's ca probable cause to make the arrest. The detectives-- it's still-- the burden still lies on that detective to make that, to establish the probable cause, right?

So we give them that investigative lead that does hopefully lead to an arrest, you know? But again, it's not-- the burden is not on us. It's more on them. That's the way to really protect it. And, you know, like I always said, you know, the biometrics is, you know, our results bring back sometimes the max 243 images we're looking at, right? And some people, if you put my face in there and you may see a face of a female in there, and they're like, “wow, look how wrong that is.” Well, it's not wrong because it's the facial-- it's going by the facial features, right? It's not, it doesn't see skin color. It's going by nose, ear, eyes, everything like that.

So, you know, sometimes those people are not educated and they don't actually read about anything like that. I read articles. I read a lot of articles that (inaudible) puts out and you know, NIST may put out about facial rec. I love reading. So, you know, I'm always on top of all the new changes to legislation as well when it comes to facial rec.

Steve: Excellent. Excellent. Well, I'm glad that you're investing so much time into the research of the technology and NIST is a great organization to provide standards. This audience for the podcast includes a lot of solution providers, practitioners of these types of technologies, oftentimes in remote and mobile onboarding, but more and more in physical access control use cases, security use cases. You mentioned a few of the companies that are in your stack. Can you share your experience working on proofs of concept? Are there any notable provider experiences that have impressed you?

Michael: I could say I worked on some proof of concept with some biometric companies and, you know, very impressed with the new technology coming out and especially the, you know, live face recognition. I'm very interested to see where that's going to play out in the next, you know, coming years. Is that going to be our new one-to-one, you know, because we could, right now we're at a stage that I think facial rec is going to take it to the next level, right? And, but we got to do that in a safe way.

So, you know, I think, you know, we all have to get together in the community and say, “Hey, this is how we're going to use it.” And we don't want to, you know, we don't want to infringe on people's rights, you know, on their privacy. So, you know, I think having that discussion internally and with outside agencies and with biometric companies, I think we should come up with some type of legislation or something like that, that protects the people, protect the officers using it, and also protects the country, right?

Because, it could be used as a great tool. And I'm not just talking about catching criminals. I use this example all the time. My mom has Alzheimer's and dementia and my greatest fear is not being able to find her. And, you know, I want to be able-- if technology is out there to help people like my mom or any special category, missing autistic children that we lose, that we, you know, we can't find them, missing children. I think we should be able to leverage that technology in a way to help bring that-- those families back together. 

Steve: Those are really good use cases for the technology besides crime fighting and finding missing individuals. 

Michael: People don't know, like we get, we, you know, we get a lot of requests from the hospitals too, to identify people. And we, we do it, you know, we'll do it for them and, you know, it's bringing those families closure. So facial recognition can be used in a lot of ways, not just catching criminals. Can be used to bring closure to those families. It's a big deal, it really is. You know, no one wants to ever hear that someone is missing in their family, you know, and then never to be found. There's so many cases like that, it’s mind boggling. 

Steve: And in a city the size of New York with the number of buildings and places, it's like you could very easily be lost in that without having that. 

Michael: I get lost. I get lost all the time, even where I live now. 

Steve: That's funny. Well, for companies that might be watching this, that sell these types of solutions, what advice do you have on how they can best serve law enforcement?

Because many of these companies work like financial services and banking regulation. But for law and government, are there engagement models that you find work really well? Like, how do you like to work with companies? 

Michael: I like, you know, the proof of concept, use case scenario is that, you know, before I procure a product, I want to test it out.

So, my advice to them is do, you know, free proof of concepts. You know, if you believe in your product and you believe that it works and everything. You tell me that it's going to do, when you show me that great PowerPoint and how great it is, I want to see it live. I want to see it in an environment that I'm going to use it in, you know, because everyone uses technology differently.

Every department uses facial recognition differently. They may not have the strict regulations that we have, you know, they may be more lax. So, you know, I always will tell them, “always listen to the customer, what the customer wants,” because like previously that, you know, no customer is the same.

I may-- my unit may like it like this. Some units may like like that, but just listen to us. We know what we're doing. We know what we talk about. You know, their job at the end of the day is to make that sale, right? But also to make us happy that we picked a product that we're going to use for a long time and it's going to be effective, right?

And don't be pushy too. I hate pushy vendors. I do not like that. I do not answer their phone calls or the text messages. I will not do that. And, you know, they could be very pesky when it comes to certain things. 

Steve: That's great advice. You know, there's one other topic I want to cover, shifting gears a bit, and that is around the proactive nature of a Real Time Crime Center.

One of the hot button items in our country is the surge in gun violence, whether it be in the subway or at major events. We've been seeing more and more school shootings. How do you see these technologies being used to detect weapons like firearms to keep us safe. Is that something you've looked at? 

Michael: I have-- there's a couple of companies out there that we've tested out. I believe this is technology that could help us react faster to an incident. If we get that weapon on a camera and that weapons detection algorithm is there. The faster we get there, the faster we could stop that threat. That's the truth, right? And that's an active shooter situation. You want to just get in there and you want to be the first ones on and you want to keep going until you find that threat and eliminate the threat, right? 

In the subways, a lot of our shooters are jumping turnstiles and go into the subway to escape. You know, think of high targets to malls, schools, you know, we got to protect our children, you know, there's not-- you know, you could go through that door. There's one person in my daughter's school, it's a school safety agent, she has a vest on, obviously she doesn't carry a firearm. What's stopping someone, you know, nothing is, right? So this technology, I mean, look at President Trump had two assassinations. One that I'm pretty sure if we had some gun detection prior, we would have probably knew that it was some type of object detection out there that it could have probably been avoided.

Those shots would have never probably took off-- you know, got off. I'm not being a Monday quarterback here. I'm just stating the obvious. This is my own personal opinion. You know, I do believe in weapons detection. I think it's part of the future package when it comes to live face, right? So it kind of goes hand in hand, you know, eliminate that threat. 

This world is, since COVID, I feel it's taken a turn towards evil, right? And my job is to protect my family, protect my kids, and protect you. You know, you want to come into New York, I'm going to protect you. But I need all the resources that I can get to protect you.

And, you know, I always say, I am not that person that is going to be scared to speak my mind or I will push the envelope if I need to, but I will do it all in a legal way. But I think that going forward in the future, we, and when I say future, I'm meaning like months. You know, we have an election coming up, Israel conflict, you got wars all over the world. You know, I don't want to see another 9/11 ever happen on our soil ever again. So if we could prevent that, let's prevent it. Let's be, you know, reactive, like, you know, let's be proactive. I mean, not reactive, right? So, that's my motto. 

Steve: Well, you mentioned the look ahead, you know, we're working in months at a time to be able to roll these technologies out, you're pretty dialed into technology and artificial intelligence and biometrics, when you look out and you vision cast 10 years out, where do you think we'll be with these technologies a decade from now?

Michael: It's going to be like-- hopefully it'll be like the future, like we always envisioned. Not like in the Jetsons with the flying cars. But it's going to be, you know, I, you know, the word safe cities is also always thrown around, right? Safe, smarter cities and stuff like that. And I think there's going to be a time that you, you know, you're going to-- you're not going to be able to pass a camera without it not knowing-- not saying who you are-- but you are a male and if you have something on you, that may be a weapon. You know, we got to look outside the box for this stuff and biometrics could help solve a lot of crimes, but also could prevent a lot of crimes.

A good use case I'll bring up is the subway pushers. That, to me, is a horrible crime. I can't stand them. People got to stop, number one, standing by that yellow line, that yellow line is there for a reason-- always have your back against the wall no matter where you go, you should do that. But when they get pushed, if we have some facial recognition with some AI built in that we could put geolocation around that. And if someone gets pushed into the subway tracks that train coming through should know that someone's on the tracks and they should stop. You know, little things like that that could save lives. 

You know, elderly assaults. I keep hearing, you know, behavioral AI-- I don't think it's even that close to being there yet-- behavioral AI-- I don't even know how that's going to work-- but I'm interested to test it out, right? Because, you know, how do we perfect things? We perfect things when we work through it, and we try our best. Like the weapons detection, we went at it a couple of times, I'll be honest with you, trying to perfect it the way that we want it. So we always got to try it-- to make it work. 

Steve: Yeah, I often look to film. I think like the Tom Cruise movies, like Minority Report or Mission Impossible. They always give us a glimpse of maybe where these future techs go. Not always exactly correct, but I definitely could appreciate the subway pusher detection. Because that's one of my biggest fears when I go to New York and take the subway is I got to keep my back to the wall. 

Michael:  Yeah. And elderly crimes too. You know, people are punching elderly people. What's wrong with these people, you know? And it's-- that's something that could be on a camera, could be-- you know, that's where the behavioral comes in.

You know, if we could catch that fast or we could catch, you know, a fight happening in progress, if we could prevent shootings from happening-- and not just shootings-- and I'm talking about like terrorism. I'm like shootings, you know, us shooting our own people-- you know, two gangs going at it. If we could prevent that from happening, before it happens, you know that that's the key man, you know, I don't want to see people hurt. No one wants to see anyone hurt and the last couple of years in this country, I feel like there's a lot of elements out there that can be very bad for our future. 

Steve: This is a little random and slightly off topic, but what do you think about augmented reality technologies? Like what Meta and Google have done with glasses, where overlays, do you see that in the not too distant future?

Michael: Love it. I love it because it kind of puts you in that area, but you're not in that area, right? But you could still safely look around to see what's out there live. I've saw a couple of models at the beginning stages and I'm like, “Oh, I want to try that so bad.” Again, that's something that needs to be tested.

And how is it tested? They could test it at their companies-- that's great. I'm sure they got a lot of qualified people, but let police test it out. Let us test-- that we are the end users of these products. So, you know, we should be testing out that stuff, but I think it's great. I saw a couple of models and I want to get my hands on it. Because I want to see, I just want to see, you know, what's around in that area and just to see what I could see and think about use cases for that, right? Because right now there may not be that many, right? Let's not wait until there is a use case. Let's come up with our own use cases and be smart about it.

Steve: Yeah, well, I certainly could use it in New York. Instead of staring at my phone, walking around, trying to find where I'm going. I could just…  

Michael: Very dangerous. I tell people all the time. Never put your head down in New York, you know, and that's anywhere-- never put your head down. Don't be on your phone when you're crossing the street. Come on, these are common things. Common sense things that our parents have taught us. You know, they would hit us in the back of the head-- “What are you doing?” If you do something, you can't do that anymore these days, unfortunately, 

Steve: Post pandemic, I feel like there's been a lot more of that people on their phone everywhere they go walking, crossing streets, driving. It's really crazy how much that is picked up, but I digress. 

Well, Lieutenant, we're coming up on time for this episode. I've really enjoyed this conversation, but before we wrap up today, one of the things I do in the series, I like to share a little bit more about the person behind the press release, behind their profession, and I'd love to hear what you do with your free time when you're not serving and protecting in the NYPD. What would you do outside of work? 

Michael: I'm a very big sports fanatic and I'm a very big basketball fan. Love my Knicks. You know, I love-- my girls play basketball, so I love coaching my daughter's basketball team. How do I find the time to do it? It's hard. It's not easy, but I've never missed one of my daughter's games and, you know, practicing with her outside. It's everything that, you know, a dad would want in his life. 

So, you know, my advice is to all the-- if any officers are watching this, any profession doesn't matter, you don't have to be an officer-- you know, your job could be stressful to just have an outlet that you could take that stressor away.

And my stressor is watching my daughter play basketball. And now the other one's coming up and she's going to start playing and taking them to basketball and interacting with, you know, the parents and stuff like that and seeing them grow and seeing them get better and, and teaching them. And I still play too. I may not look like a basketball player, but I still play on the weekends. I'm a weekend warrior. So I play with a bunch of guys at a local school right by my house every Saturday. I love it until I get hurt and then I say, “I'll never play ever again.” But I still play, you know, that's one of the things I really do love to do. And spend time with my family any chance I could, I will spend time with them because family is everything. I do this for them. I really do. 

Steve: Got to watch those explosive moves on the court on your achilles. You don't want to pull one of those. 

Michael: I got a screw in one knee and I still play. So, you know, nothing stops me. One day I'll probably have to say, I can't play anymore but I think I'm far away from there, right? Because, you know, you got to, you know, love what you do, especially on the weekends and get that stress relief out and then start fresh the next week. And then that's why working out is important to eating right, all that stuff, right?  

Steve: I'm curious as a leader in law enforcement, do you like crime shows? Whether it be like True Crime or a show like Dexter, or is that just too close to work?

Michael: I love Dexter. I'm actually watching it now with my wife. We're re-watching it. It's like the fourth time we've watched it. It's interesting when you watch those shows because you're like, “I wouldn't do that” or, you know, “oh, good thing they looked at…” You know, so it's like you learn from it, you know, I'm not a cop buff. I don't watch like NYPD blue and stuff. I can't watch that, you know, things like that. But I do like the documentaries that are coming out of fascinating, you know, on Netflix and Hulu. 

You know, one thing I will tell you right now is that the Gilgo Beach case is going to be very interesting in the next year, you're going to find a lot of things that this guy did, the serial killer that he may go down as one of the worst serial killers we ever had in this country, the Gilgo Beach killer. So they'll make some documentaries on him very soon. It's too fresh, you know, but you know, it's people should learn. Hey, there's evil out there, man. There's evil out there. It doesn't matter where you live. You can live in a rich place, like the brothers that-- the Melendez brothers, you know, kill their parents. Crazy, horrible, you know, but they had everything right. And they would just-- they went crazy and they killed that-- but that's just-- it's horrible. That's horrible. And that's that evil that I talk about over and over again during this podcast. That's out there. 

Steve: I asked about Dexter because I too, like re-watching the series, I did a recent vacation out to Florida and went on a cruise and I downloaded season 1, 2, 3 and re-watching those because I watched them when they came out on Showtime, like back in the day, I'm old enough… 

Michael: Yeah of course. And I watched the newest one, I loved it. I thought it was great. Breaking Bad's one of my, another favorite show of mine as well. Because, you know, with the whole, you know, how he fooled everyone and then his brother-in-law was a DEA agent and the fifth season was amazing.

You know, but Dexter is one, Dexter's one of my favorite shows, I will say. Probably of all time because it has so much and every season is not like the previous seasons. It's new and it's what happened in those episodes like, you know they kind of foreshadow what happens eventually so you kind of pick up on that.

Steve: Well, you think about the technology that they were using like they didn't have genealogy DNA. They didn't have these biometric search engines. They didn't have location tracking on these cell phones, which we all use. 

Michael: Yeah, can you, can you imagine Dexter in today's-- with cameras, he would never get away with what he got away with. 

Steve: It's, it's one season, it. [Michael: Not, not even, it's like three episodes, you know] 

Michael: But it's kind of good the way we have our technology where we've come, right? And I-- my advice to companies is don't stop. Just keep doing what you're doing and, you know, show me what you got. I want to see it. You know? 

Steve: Yeah. Well that leads to one of my last questions for those that are watching or listening to this. What types of conversations would you like to entertain? Not to like, pester you and follow-up, you know, incessantly, but what are you interested in hearing from the market? 

Michael: I am always a fan of, you know, cameras. Obviously, I'm big into these, the fishbowl cat-- the fishbowl cameras and the full lens cameras that have come out. And, you know, how we could integrate-- how we could get our hand-- you know, get these things set up without the whole process of, you know, building a camera and stuff like that and putting everything into it.

I want things to be done easier and that's where AI comes in, right? So AI should make our lives easier. Our everyday lives, help us write emails, help us write memos, help us write articles, let's say, you know, whatever could take us, you know, take our time and bring more time to focus on investigations.

That's what it's about. And a lot of people sell me, on AI, but they don't know what I want it for. You know, there's less cops out there. So, when it comes to taking a report, a police report can be timely. You know, I want to-- you know, there's some companies that say that they could, off the body camera, generate a police report. That's something that I’d like to see that's something I want to see. That's how the Real Time Crime Center came about in 2005 as well because after 9/11 we had less cops because a lot of them retired so we had that need for technology that we had to bring in. And we did bring it in. 

Now we're seeing that, you know, defund the police. No one wants to be a police officer anymore. It's sad. It's a great profession. I've had the seat to the best show in the world for 20 years. And I made some great friends and I've seen some things that I want to forget, but I've also seen things that I don't want to forget that I'm very proud of. So, you know, I'm looking forward to the next 10, 15 years and seeing what we could do. 

Steve: Amazing. Well, Lieutenant Ricupero, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really look forward to watching the continued innovation out of the greatest city and the greatest department in the world, the NYPD. I appreciate you spending the time with me. 

Michael: Steve, thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.