Citizen Filmmakers
An underground market has existed for years under the media radar, Citizens taping illegal narcotics sales and posting it on YouTube and related sites in an effort to shame city and police officials into taking action around their neighborhoods. Someone posted this guy's link in a comment section:
He seems to cover a section of the 011 District and labels the characters he films, including dealers, users, dealers dad, dealers mom, etc. It's amusing.
A question though - is there any way to use this guy's videos in court? A poster said, "He's doing your job," but the truth is we haven't the manpower to do our jobs as it is, let alone go after street corner sellers.
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
33 Comments:
I'm wondering what garbage can you'll be finding him in once the thugs figure out who he is.
If he's filming on, or from, the public way, it's admissable.
"He's doing your job," but the truth is we haven't the manpower to do our jobs as it is, let alone go after street corner sellers.
============================
A devils advocate would say...
Well I saw about 20 bike cops doing nothing but following occupy protestors around today. Some would argue that the city is not leveraging it's resources and doesn't deserve more coppers until they do.
Now, take your camera and record how cases get handled in the preliminary hearings
2 rocks/2 blows and your case gets dropped
weed, forget about it... unless you have more than 10 grams
If that citizen knew we need covert cars, man power, equipment, and the ok from the boss yeah that might work.
Since there is no expectation of privacy yes that can be used. By an industrious ADA to indict all of them that are involved. There will be much movement in the discovery phase over "if the video was edited" or how much resolution enhancement was needed to actually get a recognizable face...and of course the dope sellers will find a way to hire a hacker to "discover" the ident of the YouTube video poster so some of their friends can have "a chat."
But just like the average citizen can be no concent video taped by random security camera, the bangers have the same risk as there is no workplace law that Pete ya them from it
You would have to call the filmmaker to lay a foundation for the admission of the tape. That would be problematic, as I would assume every defense attorney would cross the heck out of him in order to get location etc.
Furthermore, the witness would have to provide the basis of his knowledge for anything that appears on the tape. i.e., how many transactions has he observed, how does he know that the items being tendered are narcotics, how does he know where they are stored, etc
This seemed to work for the person on Lake St, got all those problem clubs in 012 shut down.
Its not in the box !!!!
This dude has done more work/investigation than any of our narcotics teams!!!! If your in Narcotics and not to busy growing out ur beard, getting tattooed, walking around the district acting like ur from Sons of Anarchy, or wearing a gun belt with basketball shorts and tank top! (all bonafide sightings) the actual "workers" grab a hype, call him their CI, then just do lame search warrants! I have been privy to actually be "enforcement" car on 3 separate search warrants for a Narcotics team. Results: 2 abandoned houses, one house positive for.....a bullet. Not a box, few, but ONE BULLET.
Holy Shiite!! That's some good video. Man, that guy filming and giving the play by play has a set of brass balls! If they ever fine out who he is...
Absolutely it can be used in court.
Q. Mr. Videoguy, were you at [location] at [time]?
Q. What did you observe there?
Q. Did you make a video recording of it?
Q. Showing you now what has been marked as State's Exh. 43, can you tell us what that is?
Done, admitted. Then the ASA shows the video to the jury, and points out the strong resemblance between the defendant and the guy doing the hand-to-hand transaction with the guy they nabbed off camera moments later.
Good job! I wish I had time to work covert narcotics. Im usually staked allllll day with bull shit babysitting style jobs
"He's doing your job," but the truth is we haven't the manpower to do our jobs as it is, let alone go after street corner sellers.
Bullshit...These idiots still think stuff like this is OUR job. OUR job isn't to record narcotic street sales.
Anonymous said...
I'm wondering what garbage can you'll be finding him in once the thugs figure out who he is.
5/30/2012 12:15:00 AM
"which garbage cans"
Yep, the real shame is the lack of prosecutorial will on the part of judges and prosecutors. The public should know that buyers Of narcotics are always let free in prelims and sellers given probation at trial. That's why the problem exits. A publicity campaign needs to be waged to bring this to light. Judges and prosecutors should be forced to publicly explain every ruling they make in a press conference type setting. Currently they thrive in anonymity.
SCC the only way that we are going to start taking crime seriously and start supplying the CPD with the manpower and money it needs is if the media turns on Rham. For the last 20 years the media has been so pro mayor it makes me sick, he could tell the Trib and all the major news stations that the sky is brown and the grass is red and they just eat it up without question. Investigative reporting is dead in this town, until you see videos like this in CBS, NBC, Fox & WGN every single night and REALLY shame the city into doing the right thing they will just keep throwing enough money at the problem to try and keep the crime problem "contained"
Sounds like that murder rate is going to shoot up big time. If the Gangstas get wind of who is filming their illicit activities they will be marked for death. No snitchin in da Hood.
It is a very amusing video. Nice to see a citizen in that neighborhood focusing his camera on shitbirds and trying to catch them dirty instead of the police. The guy is just fed up with the scumbags on his block. You never know, he might just catch a homicide on film.
Why not follow-ups using the video on You Tube?
Come on tact teams and 06 cars?
We are the police, right? This is open source information.
Drug/gang intelligence?
At least embarass the buyers.
Won't take long for these smart Gangstas to figure out where the apartment is where this video was shot from. The Bang Bang Bang. End of story.
Not tape the court proceedings
It won't help because this city cares about revenue $.
A few of us have called the drug reporting hotline on clearpath, and the lady actually put me on hold seevral times... then sounding very uninterested didn't bother to take all the information and hung up on me.
Clearpath also has only (2) type of forms you can complete and none of which for drug dealers, etc that you can report online UNLIKE other police departments where you have the ability to report it online.
I work in 011 on midnights and if you want to get drugs you have to hunt for it. so it seems to me that days and afternoon haven't been doing their jobs. White shirts on those watches need to get on their blue shirts to do some work.
Once they figure out which building this came from, you'll see a building or building burned down. These animals aren't going to lose a $50k-100k on some goof with a video camera. Fillmore is Fillmore.
"He's doing your job," but the truth is we haven't the manpower to do our jobs as it is, let alone go after street corner sellers.
============================
A devils advocate would say...
Well I saw about 20 bike cops doing nothing but following occupy protestors around today. Some would argue that the city is not leveraging it's resources and doesn't deserve more coppers until they do.
5/30/2012 01:05:00 AM
Occupy, it's over. Go home.
So the Hoosiers drive here for Dope & we drive there for Smokes?
Only in America....
He's got a future in manning the Pod Cams
"This seemed to work for the person on Lake St, got all those problem clubs in 012 shut down."
--5/30/2012 07:49:00 AM
I saw that -- looked like about thirty thousand hours of work.
I wonder -- did everything come back under another name, and he finally quietly left, or what.
There was some other "Camera House" thing going big here for a few minutes, they were inviting DCs in for full tours, etc. -- then it suddenly stopped.
I guess you have to decide whether you want to have a life or not.
(I looked up some of those Lake Street addresses in an old industrial directory, and in 1960 it was all factories, productive places, sources of income for tens of thousands. It is a shame -- and not everything can be "performance spaces" and "community centers" and "loft condos" to replace it. Geez, there are condoed buildings the hell out on Wolf Road with the third or fourth new self-adhesive "broker" sign stuck over the last one, prices down by $200,000 and still no takers.)
"A few of us have called the drug reporting hotline on Clearpath, and the lady actually put me on hold several times... then sounding very uninterested didn't bother to take all the information and hung up on me."
--5/30/2012 07:01:00 PM
"City services request" on City of Chicago web site the same -- e-mail acknowledgement/tracking number for your complaint simply never arrives.
The web site LOOKS impressive, though. Lots of paychecks issued, lots of gas put in cars and food put in mouths and house payments made off it.
Basic rule no matter what the city says -- 911 tells you to call 311, and 311 tells you to call 911.
Problem is saved, protected, and remains intact, and citizen is left standing there holding his d__k.
Things were a lot different when old street coppers did the dispatching, and when people did not get a "history" attached to their home phone like they were "some kind of nut."
Disgraceful on so many levels...and yet undercovers have bought tons of drugs from the lowlifes in the area of Kilbourn/Congress, with hundreds arrested...but with no education, jobs or job prospects, there are
literally hundreds of young women and men eager
to work those corners, even at the risk of being robbed
shot or killed.
Well that confirmed my thoughts as to why when kids get shot outside at midnight their mama's say we were just sitting outside.. I figured the kids were being used which is WHY they weren't home in bed.. I also figured out why they don't want guns in the hands of everyday citizens.. they might clean up this mess in their communities.. and that would make RAHM and company look bad.. I feel sorry for the CPD .. even if they arrest 1/2 of these creeps they would get off .. people have to clean up their communities.. the Police can't be everywhere seems the drug dealers have a larger work force than the CPD..
Rather than just running water through the fleshlight
itself. He wears his leathers as if they do eventually form an alliance.
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