Here’s what you’ll find at a Ring party: Open bar. Free food. Live music. A "special recognition ceremony." Free Ring doorbells. A live viewing of Shark Tank, the show that launched what would become Ring and to which company founder Jamie Siminoff eventually returned as a shark. And, most importantly, an appearance from retired basketball player Shaquille O’Neal.

This is the second of a three-part series exploring how Ring transformed from start-up pitch to the technology powering Amazon's privatized surveillance network throughout the United States.

Ring—a company that has hosted at least one company party where employees wore "FUCK CRIME" shirts and racist costumes of Native and indigenous Americans, according to new images reviewed by Motherboard—wants to brand itself a friend of police, the antidote to fear of crime, and a proponent of law and order.

You could find all this at a private party that Ring hosted for police at the 2018 International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Orlando. Ring threw a similar party on IACP weekend this year, this time in Chicago, including appearances by both Shaq and Siminoff, according to an event invitation obtained by Motherboard using a freedom of information request. The invitation notes that firearms are strictly prohibited.

"Regarding the free doorbell, to get the email you had to have RSVPd for the event," the Ring representative said. "What does the chief want. I’ll send it."

"The Deputy and the Chief signed up to go to the party with Shaq," a Haverhill, MA police officer told a Ring representative in an email. "But I guess the lines were really long and so the Deputy got an email for a free Ring Doorbell, only the Chief did not get his, was wondering if you know of why only one did and not the other?"

Events like these seem to have a positive effect. Emails after the 2018 Ring party show, for example, that senior police leadership were enticed by the idea of free stuff.

If Ring can sell an inviting brand image, police are more likely to trust the company. That trust is a crucial foundation for its partnerships with police, which have quietly proliferated since 2016, usually without public input.

Ring’s efforts to woo police aren’t limited to lavish parties. The company offers police officers $50 off Ring products if their department partners with Ring; those from departments that don’t partner with Ring can get discounts, too .

The number of Ring partnerships with police grows almost daily, and, to date, there has been limited public debate about whether these partnerships should exist in the first place. Unless lawmakers curb or regulate the expansion of these partnerships, what we are seeing now is just a minuscule version of this company’s full potential.

Ring has over 600 partnerships with law enforcement agencies around the country, and this number is increasing daily. The company has spent the past three years systematically making sure police everywhere know and recognize Ring, quietly building a nationwide surveillance network through police partnerships, and embedding itself into the functions of law enforcement. This network of police partnerships isn’t only unusual because of its size and scope. Behind the scenes, Ring is experimenting with emerging technologies, as well as pursuing a partnership with at least one other private surveillance company.

In order to entice police departments into partnering with the company, Ring often tells the police the number of Ring camera owners and Neighbors app users in their jurisdiction. Sometimes, the company provides "active camera" maps showing where camera owners live.

Motherboard has examined tens of thousands of pages of documents obtained via public-records requests from more than 90 cities that have partnered with Ring. They describe the typical relationship as a simple transaction: police get a portal where they can request footage from Ring’s network of private surveillance cameras, and the company gets the promotional muscle of the police.

Ring also offers police access to the Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal, an interactive map that allows police to request camera footage directly from camera owners. (Until July, their approximate location was shown .) These owners can choose to share some, all, or none of their footage with police; police do not need a warrant in order to request camera footage from residents. The portal also includes a case management tool, in which videos associated with an investigation are sorted into groups based on case number.

Image: Event invitation screenshot as obtained from Bradenton, FL. The original photo is "Two police officers standing on quiet road stock photo." In the original photo, their faces are not blue.

These cities receive up to 40 "seed cameras," free Ring devices they can raffle off or give away to city residents. When police share a download link to Neighbors, they can receive even more free cameras. (Ring representatives have encouraged police to post on social media often in order to "drive downloads to your unique link," and receive free Ring cameras as a "reward.")

In exchange for all of this, police have to promote Ring. Some partnerships, like those in Lakeland, FL and Anne Arundel County, MD, explicitly require police to "encourage adoption" of Ring cameras and Ring’s free app, Neighbors. (Ring has told police that the more people download Neighbors, the more the Law Enforcement Neighborhoods Portal "grows in value.")

If someone refuses to provide footage to police, all police need to do is reach out to Ring. According to a memo obtained from the police department of Pomona, CA, when camera owners are "uncooperative or unavailable," officers are instructed to contact Ring and request that the captured video be preserved.

Crucially, whenever police partner with Ring, they have to sign a memorandum of understanding that requires them to keep the terms of their agreement a secret.

"Cool!" a Green Bay officer replied. "How many do we need to be number 1?"

"App downloads at 273!" a Ring representative told Green Bay police in September 2018. "Literally in 2nd place out of any department. Crushing it!"

All approved partnership announcements about police departments joining the Neighbors app include a download code that encourages residents to download Neighbors. Police officers in cities such as Green Bay, WI and Bloomfield, NJ have been updated frequently on the number of Neighbors downloads in their town which used the discount code provided in the announcement. Ring representatives often congratulate officers on achieving this.

Additionally, according to a list of guidelines which were shared with several police departments, "any and all contact from journalists should be immediately shared with Ring."

Other cities promote Ring implicitly. All of the Ring partnership documents we reviewed require cities to have all public statements about or involving the company approved and edited by Ring PR first . Gizmodo reported that these edits sometimes remove the word "surveillance" in order to describe the function of the cameras, even though at least half a dozen cities have explicitly described Ring cameras as surveillance tools. Even Ring representatives sometimes describe their products as "motion surveillance cameras."

Ring has coached police departments that have partnered with the company on how to obtain surveillance footage from residents without a warrant. The company also provides detailed scripts to police that dictate how departments are allowed to talk about the company on Neighbors, on other social media platforms, and in real life.

An example of a request for Ring footage, as obtained from the Merriam Police Department in Kansas.

These relationships can only be expected to grow in scope. According to documents obtained by Motherboard, Ring is pursuing a partnership with Axon, a company known not just for making TASER shock devices, but for providing body cameras to police officers.

Ring’s dealings with law enforcement are not limited to the local level. Documents Motherboard obtained from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, a state-level policing and investigative agency, show that Ring has pursued a relationship with the agency. The agency reached out to Ring after footage from a Ring camera helped lead to the arrest of a wanted criminal. Ring, in turn, spoke to TBI representatives about how its partnerships work and provided a memorandum of understanding for the agency to sign. TBI representatives said that they have not signed any documents at the time of writing.

A federal public records request sent to the FBI came back with a GLOMAR response, meaning the FBI could neither confirm nor deny the existence of correspondence with Ring.

The Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal

The Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal is the coveted tool at the core of all police partnerships with Ring. It’s free, so long as police agree to and meet all of the terms outlined in the memorandum of understanding with the company. It launched in April 2018, the same month that Amazon finalized its acquisition of Ring, according to a letter provided to Senator Markey in November 2019.

Motherboard obtained a video that shows how the Law Enforcement Neighborhoods Portal worked in 2018. This video (which was previously reported by The Intercept) shows the approximate location of Ring camera owners, but in July, Ring removed any indication of customer location, following months of reporting about the privacy implications of showing police such data.

Sometimes, as reported by Gizmodo, Ring taps into police departments’ computer-aided dispatch feeds, which include data provided by 911 callers and information about the person who made the call, like name and address. Ring uses this information to make "News Alerts" about crime in the Neighbors app.

As reported by CNET, Ring is working on building a tool that will allow police to activate Ring cameras and automatically start recording.

Doubts from Police

Police have sometimes expressed concerns about the implications of partnering with a private surveillance company.