The Illusion of Safety
Thanks for demonstrating EXACTLY what we've been saying for years now:
- Despite camera, teen badly beaten on way home from school
Relatives and neighbors often had warned 16-year-old Thomas Insley, who fell victim Monday evening to a gang of robbers who beat him and choked him into unconsciousness, to find a safer route from school to his home.
But Thomas thought the corner of Ashland Avenue and Jonquil Terrace was the safest path because of the nearby Chicago Police Department eye-in-the sky camera surveying the area.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Monday, Thomas' sense of security was shattered when he was jumped from behind and one of a pack of predator teens placed him in a choke hold, before robbing him and leaving him unconscious on the street, said his father, Alan Insley.
Once again we ask, why would anyone feel safer seeing a camera? A camera doesn't have a voice. A camera doesn't have a gun. A camera isn't going to jump off the pole and save you. A camera is merely there to record what happens to you as you get shot, stabbed, beaten, robbed, etc.
And that only happens if the camera happens to be pointed in the right direction during its automated sweeps of the area. And the camera is functioning properly, of which upwards of 40% of the cameras aren't at any given time.
And let's face it - the cameras aren't there for citizens in any case. The cameras are there to provide contract money for connected companies (who sell three-generation-old equipment to the city at a mark-up) and provide busy work for separate unions to install before failing to maintain the equipment.
And that only happens if the camera happens to be pointed in the right direction during its automated sweeps of the area. And the camera is functioning properly, of which upwards of 40% of the cameras aren't at any given time.
And let's face it - the cameras aren't there for citizens in any case. The cameras are there to provide contract money for connected companies (who sell three-generation-old equipment to the city at a mark-up) and provide busy work for separate unions to install before failing to maintain the equipment.
Labels: dumb ideas
posted by SCC at 12:03 AM
11 Comments:
I install cameras and I am a member of one of the forementioned unions that are blamed for the woes of the city of Chicago but... we are not the problem. I have installed cameras at the City colleges of Chicago and the problem is that they pay for the install and don't pay for any sort of maintenace contract. Unfortunatly we deal with a made in China reality and this stuff does go bad. I would rather have a dozen cops than 100 cameras but the powers that be think that these things stop crime. That includes the cops who work these schools. The only rational I can think of is that the cameras back them up on an arrest. 1984 is now reality and we will only go back with a revolution which no one has the stomach to go forward with.
The kid was lucky... VERY LUCKY!
If anything, based on what we've read and our experience, this is indicative of a failure to teach and instruct by the father that the world is DANGEROUS and you really need to have your wits about you. Wandering down the street with buds in your ears are an invitation to the flying wereboons of assorted stripes and tribes to swoop down, snatch you up and fly away. Of course the cameras may or may not record any of this. The Police will find the bleached bones with earbuds still intact... eventually.
The willfully naive will continue to be easy prey.
Until people toughen up and get smart and street-wise we will continue to be blessed to see...
People stepping into traffic and getting run over while listening to their ipods or talking on the cell phone.
Women and men out late at night and using the cell phone as a surrogate companion instead of shutting up, tuning in and being aware of their surroundings.
Dumbasses being forcibly and involuntarily dismounted from their bicycles because they're playing with their ipods or horror of all horrors, riding and texting!
Meh... Stupidity and failure to exercise the minimum of self preservation should be painful.
We're here in the present era because some ancestors thought enough of themselves not to willingly be on the menu and passed those lessons on to the next generation.
good to see the animals in the jonquil jungle are still up to their old tricks
Nothing out of place on the POD for 15 minutes before and after time of event. There's a lot of traffic in that area...people walking around, driving by (2 squad cars), 3 guys leaning up against a car for about 20-25 minutes, no one running through the area.
PCAD has call to 911 coming from kid's home. If he was unconcious, someone would have seen him.
Maybe he got the location wrong or the incident happened in an entirely different place.
The camera "captures" the suspects, said the news reporter. But the camera can't put the cuffs on or do an arrest report. HIRE MORE POLICE!
Has anyone done the math yet, as far as breaking down the total costs of the camera scheme (hardware, staffing, maintenance, other associated costs, etc), then divided that by the number of entry level police officer salaries, so we can see how much actual, effective manpower this boondoggle is costing us?
If the CPD ever reaches a robust state of staffing and wants to experiment with something like this, fine. Go ahead. Right now, with critical manpower shortages in terms of beat officers and detectives, a minuscule clearance rate for things like home burglary, etc, pumping money into this horse shit is feeding the pig in the poke.
There's a term in investing, called 'capital efficiency'. Presuming available capital isn't unlimited, you have to use it where it will do the most good.
Thusfar, the administrators of the CPD and the idiots at City Hall have been the poster children for capital inefficiency.
We need more men on the streets. Sure, we also need to let the police be the police, but really, we desperately need more men out there confronting this shit with an armed, human face.
So last night in his Oklahome speech, Mr. Obama points out that in his home town (Chicago) childrern are hurting one another. Children hurting one another? Did I miss something here? Did some bully pull his classmate's pigtails or what? Or did BO refer to the fact that Chicago is infested with young (and not so young) murderers?
its just like in the zoo, after a while the animals get used to their surrondings and go back to their natural behavior.
Just like Skipper from Penguins of Madagascar says, "you didn't see anything" as he waves his flippers around.
It's a camera to a monitor that no one monitors !!!! The cameras were just another way for daley to pass big $$$$$ to his pals & political supporters.
daley & J-Fled the COWARD, both are useless as teats on a bull !!!
"Thomas thought the corner of Ashland Avenue and Jonquil Terrace was the safest path because of the nearby Chicago Police Department eye-in-the sky camera surveying the area."
Hard lesson, huh? Poor kid.
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