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Pasco’s sheriff uses data to guess who will commit crime. Then deputies ‘hunt down’ and harass them.

A Times investigation into an intelligence program that turned into a system of organized harassment.
 
Pasco’s sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families across the county.
Pasco’s sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families across the county. [ DOUGLAS CLIFFORD | Times staff ]
Published Sept. 3, 2020

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco took office in 2011 with a bold plan: to create a cutting-edge intelligence program that could stop crime before it happened.

It sounded like a pitch for a Hollywood blockbuster: Moneyball meets Minority Report.

The department created a 30-person intelligence department and devised an algorithm to predict who was likely to commit crimes in the future.

But the machine Nocco built has turned into a system of organized harassment.

Deputies swarm homes in the middle of the night. They write tickets for missing mailbox numbers and overgrown grass. They come again and again, making arrests for any reason they can.

Read our new investigation: Targeted.

Watch the footage: We also collected body-camera video that shows you what it’s like to become entangled in the program. Click here to see it.

The response: Here’s what the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office had to say about our investigation.