Probable Cause
The Route 24 Roadmap
If you’re new here, welcome! If you’ve been here since day one, thanks for showing up week after week! My name is Sam Reetz and I’m on a mission to help restore public trust. I have an interdisciplinary academic background that gives me the unique ability to explain technical solutions in a way that’s story-driven and easy-to-understand. This is a space where I look closer at moments of national and global significance to show you how cycles of misinformation and disinformation disorient communities.
Probable Cause is an XR civic education gaming experience that puts you in the driver’s seat to explore issues of public safety from community-centered perspectives. Route 24 is its companion newsletter that invites you to explore our creative process on the project as we build, deconstructing the real-world impact of policies and practices in transportation infrastructure, immigration reform, environmental justice, racial equity, and more to jumpstart public awareness and, in turn, mobilize narrative change.
Every week, two columns park in your inbox:
Driver’s Ed is a space to shift your gears on key policy debates and test drive people-powered solutions.
Scenic Route is a space to merge the lanes of immersive technologies, experiential storytelling, and community civics and help you find a better view.
Your follows, shares, and subscriptions help to keep this work going and reach the people the mainstream media often misses. For riders in a position to financially contribute, your dollars support the project team with the critical resources needed to iterate, travel, and scale.
Thank you for joining me on this road! Start your engines…
KEY COLLABORATORS
Sherrill Knezel is a graphic recorder, illustrator, veteran art educator, author, and TEDx speaker who turns complex conversations into visual stories. With 32+ years of teaching experience and as the founder of Meaningful Marks LLC, she listens deeply to create illustrations that foster clarity, connection, and accessibility. Her work supports meaningful change across sectors.
“The ability to not just tell different stories and perspectives, but to interact and make choices in the experience was a key component of what drew me into Probable Cause. I believe understanding these different perspectives and choices is always important, especially now more than ever at a time where we may feel so divided. The choices we make in the vacuum of a moment may feel unique to us as individuals, but when presented in this context, it's incredible to see how similar we tend to be.”
Tony Quera, on what calls him to the project
Tony Quera is a Digital Cartoonist/Illustrator from New York City. He is the creator of the Garbage Dump/Landfill, an ode to the island and city he calls home. You can see more of his work and his cat on his Instagram, @te_quera.
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Foundation
It was my last semester of college and it was getting late. I’d attended a poetry reading with a few graduate students, but had decided to leave early. I had a paper due the next day. The surrounding neighborhood was a quaint, residential part of Yonkers, well-lit and close enough to walk back to campus. I’d barely made it to the edge of the sidewalk before I heard a car turn the corner. The car pulled up on the other side of the street, parallel to where I stood. It took a moment for me to realize it was a police car. There were two officers inside. One of them addressed me, asking if I’d seen any suspicious activity in the area. I hadn’t. It’s hard to articulate the level of awareness I felt in that moment, but it’s one every woman has experienced at some point in her life. Intuition signaled that those officers would be circling back and that I needed to be in a more public place. Fast. Heels in one hand, phone in the other, I sprinted to a nearby gas station. Their car caught up with me at the traffic light. The same officer who’d addressed me before, handed me an invitation to an upcoming party. Bring your friends, he said. Then they drove off…
The implications of this interaction jumpstarted my research interest in national traffic stop data, where the points of intersection may exist in our lived experiences, and how situational context, use of language, and personal choice impact outcomes.
When Route 24 soft-launched in September 2024, I wrote about how the term probable cause is derived from the probability-related Latin predicate, probabilis. The stories I initially shared during the election cycle oscillated between short stories and flash fiction — formats that are not my primary writing style, but that I believed were easily accessible to the general public. I addressed adjacent issues to Probable Cause from a place of subtlety, taking different people-powered routes to indicate how life may change in a flash.
KPI’sThe stories shared are more directly in line with the world of Probable Cause, such as script teasers and the “Arcade Alley” section, which gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at some of the gaming features and design approaches that have informed the project.
Transmission
Probable Cause is a hybrid engine designed to create lanes of discovery — to imagine possible avenues for community restoration within existing and emerging policy frameworks. It’s a story about generations of real people and a community space for social innovation. It’s a vehicle to explore ethical use cases for gamification, e-learning, and prebunking techniques. It’s a place to steer a middle course, not to acquiesce to hate, but instead to confront attempts at disorientation head-on and pursue solutions driven by faith in democracy and a commitment to humanity.
Key project milestones include presenting at New York Hall of Science, Generations United, SaveArtSpace, and Accelerator for Media Professionals New York City (AMP NYC - Third Cohort), serving as a community partner for Civic Holidays, such as National Voter Education Week, Election Hero Day, and Vote Early Day, mobilizing collective action with our Route 24 Toolkit and Navigators Circle, supporting a voting and reproductive rights billboard with Art for Democracy and SaveArtSpace, and hosting a civic education information session on National Voter Registration Day with Force Multiplier.
Detailing
For riders in a position to offer financial backing, paid subscriptions to Route 24 help us to build the creative team and a more immersive prototype for Probable Cause. It also helps to keep this newsletter free and fully accessible to all of our riders.
Here’s what a Route 24 subscription gives you:
A safe zone to explore your blindspots.
Immersive stories that test drive people-powered solutions.
Interdisciplinary insights that shift your gears on key policy debates.
An innovative vehicle to accelerate pathways for community restoration.
We welcome one-time contributions or monthly subscriptions to help us sustain and advance this project.
For Patrons of Social Justice Art who share in our ongoing commitment to advance storytelling for the public good, Route 24’s Founding Membership Drive kicks will run full speed ahead until Wednesday, July 8th, with our end goal to reach 27 Founding Members.
However you may come along for the ride, thank you for your support of independent storytellers, your faith in democracy, and above all, your commitment to humanity.
Stay the course,
Sam
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