Built by an active LEO, for his own shifts.

Who builds LOC8

My name is William Ojakian. I am a sworn law enforcement officer, 11 years on the job, and I build LOC8 on the side. It came out of a problem every officer knows: the moment on a call when you lose your bearings and have to give an exact location, fast. After a foot pursuit a couple of fences over. At a house with no number on it while units are asking where to go. On field training, just trying to place yourself.

Nothing on my phone gave me that cleanly. A maps app wants to route me somewhere. On a call I did not need a route. I needed my position, my cross street, and a way to put another unit on me, in one glance.

So I built the tool I wanted in my own hand. Then other officers started asking for it.

Why the app is shaped the way it is

Every choice in LOC8 comes from being on the job, not from a product meeting.

• It opens straight to your position, because on a call you do not have time to dig through menus.
• It shows your nearest cross street automatically, because that is the position dispatch can route to fastest.
• It carries four coordinate formats, because the unit on the other end is not always speaking yours.
• It works offline, because the calls that go bad are often the ones in a dead zone.
• It keeps no account and no location history, because your position is operational, and it should not be sitting on a server tied to your name.

That last one matters to me as much as any feature. I am careful with my own data on the job, so the app is built to be careful with yours.

Giving back

A share of LOC8 proceeds goes to organizations that support officers and their families, including the Officer Down Memorial Page and the Overwatch Collective. This is a tool built inside the profession, and part of what it earns goes back into it.