Report: The NYPD Is Ending Their Contract With The Silicon Valley Data Company That Helped Bust Bobby Shmurda

Palantir, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel, is refusing to turn over their data and analysis to the department, according to BuzzFeed News.

June 28, 2017
Report: The NYPD Is Ending Their Contract With The Silicon Valley Data Company That Helped Bust Bobby Shmurda Bobby Shmurda performs at Power 105.1's Powerhouse concert at Barclays Center, October 30, 2014.   Bryan Bedder / Getty Images

The NYPD is ending its contract with Palantir Technologies, a $20 billion Silicon Valley company that the department has used to collect and analyze data since 2012, BuzzFeed News reports. According to emails obtained by BuzzFeed, the NYPD used the analysis from Palantir to carry out a sting operation that led to the arrest of New York rapper Bobby Shmurda.

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The NYPD has been creating their own data system to replace Palantir's software, but the Silicon Valley company, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel in 2004, hasn't been complying with the department's requests to turn over their data, three sources told BuzzFeed.

The software collects arrest records, license plate reads, parking tickets, and more, then graphs this data to find correlations between crimes and people. Palantir currently has contracts with the FBI, CIA, and the Marine Corps, and the military's Special Operations Command, as well as Walmart and BP.

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Shmurda was arrested in 2014 and charged with eight felony counts, including conspiracy to commit 2nd degree murder, conspiracy to commit 2nd degree assault, weapons and narcotics charges.

In October 2016, he plead guilty to weapons charges and received a seven-year sentence. At the time, Shmurda's lawyer told The FADER that time served and good behavior would "hopefully permit him to be home in approximately 3 1⁄2 years." Shmurda plead guilty to promoting prison contraband in February 2017 and was sentenced to an additional four years; the sentence will run concurrently with the sentence from his previous weapons charge and he won't serve any additional time.

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Report: The NYPD Is Ending Their Contract With The Silicon Valley Data Company That Helped Bust Bobby Shmurda