100 Cameras - Hahahaha

Excuse us for a moment - Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha - Oh Lordy Lordy.

From the Sun Times:

• Surveillance cameras on high-crime Chicago street corners have triggered 1,458 arrests since February 2006 -- including two men accused of murdering a 14-year-old boy -- Mayor Daley said Thursday, touting his plan to add 100 cameras.

  Tony Ruiz, executive director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, called surveillance cameras a "force multiplier."

Ok, first up, this HAS to be a joke. We'd like to see the 1,458 arrests. And we'd love to see the breakdown of types of arrests. We have an idea of what they are:

• OEMC - XX13?
• Reply - XX13 go
• OEMC - XX13, camera watchers have spotted a suspicious male drinking from a paper bag at First and Main
• Reply - XX13 10-4 (unintelligible) We're heading that way now (muffled laughter)

Any copper not looking to dog it will go there, hassle the drunks, dump their beer, and come up for more BS. On the other hand, some are going to dog it and stay down for 20 minutes or more. And a third option, if the Tact teams are listening, there's the "quality of life" pinch and let's go to lunch. In every scenario, you've taken a 10-4 car out of service for 5, 20 0r 90 minutes (add generous lunch break for Tact). "Force multiplier?" Mr. Ruiz, you're dreaming.

Now let's cover what isn't in Fran Spielman's puff piece about cameras - technological shortfalls. Unless something has changed in the past 90 days, you still have 559 cameras feeding into a server designed for 100. The server alone costs a boatload of money; one estimate heard was a quarter million. And the City/Department has been trying to get by with duct tape and prayers.

Then we have the HILARIOUS incident about two months ago where the City tried to save money by putting the router wiring for Area 4 and 5 cameras into a building attached to the west side incinerator facility at Chicago and Kilbourn. Three different cops wrote to us that the building is abandoned for regular use, but still houses a bunch of essential electrical junction boxes. Anybody want to guess who likes to go into abandoned buildings to strip out copper wire for money? A couple of homeless guys broke in, stripped everything and disabled the cameras for weeks. The Department was hiding critical wiring in unprotected abandoned buildings - guess how much THAT one cost? Not only in terms of money, but Area 4 and 5 beat cars were required to do "camera checks" for event numbers every day, every shift for at least two weeks because with the wiring down, the cameras couldn't be monitored to make sure no one was stealing them. Hello backlogs!

And finally, we have this:

• The latest version is similar but cheaper -- anywhere from $1,200 to $3,000 -- and it's wireless. That should finally pave the way for Daley to realize his ultimate goal: allowing beat officers to monitor cameras from their squad cars on laptop computers.

  [...] Gunshot detection technology still is being tested more than three years after Daley touted it as the latest camera innovation.

  The arrest of two men in the June 11 shooting death of 14-year-old Roberto Duran in the Little Village neighborhood marked the first time that cameras had captured an alleged murder.

Monitor cameras from squad cars? Gunshot detection? Captured an alleged murder? Hold on a second - Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha Hahahaha

Let's check the vehicle board in our station...yup, still have 8 pools cars listed, none of which have a newer computer. And look, there are two cars listed as "No Pool" because the EMMD people can't keep a car running to save its life. And then we have those "Out of Range" messages that the EMMD people tell us are imaginary because their magic wands say they're getting a signal, no problem. Anyone else having problems with the mysterious power surges in the cars that make your computer re-boot 5 times a shift? We're getting letters about that one, too.

Gun shot detection is a fantasy with the cameras in place. These things are fooled by firecrackers, backfires and echoes. You need detectors within shouting distance of one another in order to TRIANGULATE where shots are coming from. The demonstration model we saw on the Discovery Channel once had no fewer than 3 detectors set up at 100-foot intervals and cost a few million. Maybe they've improved since then, but we don't see the City spending that kind of money.

And captured an alleged murder? First up, Roberto Duran is dead of a gunshot wound. We'd say that negates the "alleged" part. Second, the camera didn't capture any part of the shooting - it wasn't even there. An alert citizen saw the whole thing and followed the killers' vehicle in his own car - an act that ought to get him a medal at least. The killers wrecked and tried to flee on foot. The only thing the camera caught was the car driving down a city street and two subjects fleeing from the wreck. If the alert citizen hadn't followed the car and called in the chase, who knows if the tape would have pulled for anything? We're betting it wouldn't have been.

So Fran and the Sun Times continue to carry water for the mayor and his tax hike that isn't going to do a damn thing to protect the citizens. This "Wizard of Oz" fantasy land is one terror incident (or one Federal indictment) from collapsing like a house of cards.