Inside Citizen, the App That Asks You to Report on the Crime Next Door

Anthony Goblirsch’s mom is driving him to the evacuation zone. A gas leak has sprung up in the area, and mother and son are zipping to the scene in the family's SUV, a black GMC Denali.

Hope sits half cross-legged, her right foot working the pedals while her left foot stays tucked against her right thigh. Anthony is in the back, next to the vacant car seat meant for his younger sister, listening to a police scanner and thumbing a map on Hope’s smartphone as he feeds her driving directions. Anthony is using his mother's phone because he's only 12 years old. He has to wait until he's a little older before he gets his own.

Anthony is a thin white kid with straight brown hair, his nose and cheeks splotched with freckles. His shirt bears the logo of the local youth gymnastics program he belonged to before everything got canceled. It’s late February 2020, just a couple short weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic will grind the world to a halt.