You've heard of Rent-a-Cops before, but this is the real deal.

A recently released app called "Patrol" has rolled out to affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods, including Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, and Malibu, with "more areas coming soon."

A spinoff of the company "Protector" — an Uber-style rentier app that lets users temporarily hire an armed bodyguard — Patrol offers property owners the chance to rent out "off-duty police officers to help protect their homes."

"When you book a private patrol, you're getting more than just presence," declares a marketing video on the company's X account. "You're getting protection from trained, off-duty officers. You might not always be home, but with Patrol, someone always is."

While Protector is geared toward individuals, the marketing material for Patrol overwhelmingly features shots of single-family houses, white families, and affluent suburban neighborhoods.

Indeed, whether you're stuck in traffic and need someone to watch the kids, heading out on a vacation, or, as Patrol puts it, "it's just another quiet night, and you'd rather sleep knowing someone's looking out for you" — your personal police officer has you covered.

According to a press release, Patrol "officers" are "vetted professionals" from law enforcement, military, and special forces backgrounds.

"Protection isn't only about responding to danger. It's about creating the kind of calm that lets families focus on living," said Nick Sarath, the CEO of Protector.

While the world portrayed in Protector's marketing materials is bright and hopeful, some say these apps are anything but.

"Sounds like there's a systemic problem with your community that you won't address and instead are saying rich people can protect their stuff, but everyone else, get used to crime," raged one user on social media.

"The cops' main job has always been to protect the rich & their property," commented Ashoka Jegroo, a journalist who writes for Common Dreams. "Now, with the help of this app, that relationship is even clearer and even more direct. A great reminder that the police aren't here to keep you safe!"

A deep dive by HuffPost on Protector found that a number of police officers working for the company had been previously disciplined by the LAPD or are embroiled in ongoing civil litigation over use of excessive force.

Zooming out, Protector and its sister app are functionally ways to monetize and stratify access to safety and security — a perk that, in an ideal world, would be afforded to everybody by tax dollars.

In reality, police have long been criticized as primarily guardians of property, something which goes back to the foundations of policing, a system with deep roots in US chattel slavery. This was made clear in a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, which found — staggeringly — that police are under no actual obligation to protect the public.

Mohammad Tajsar, a senior attorney with the ACLU of Southern California told HuffPost that at their core, these apps are an attempt to "gamify warfare."

"It's the perfect Silicon Valley gimmick," he told the site. "Take a fake problem — rising crime — offer a fake solution that you only find in video games, dress up your own squad of goons and roll it out to a crowd of internet-brained pseudo wealthy people who want this kind of dystopian future."

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