5 ms·

I live in Oakland and I would love it if the police had more surveillance tools at their disposal. Of course oversight is important, but the current political c

by ggreer 10y ago

I live in Oakland and I would love it if the police had more surveillance tools at their disposal. Of course oversight is important, but the current political climate is far too wary of surveillance in public areas. Many parts of Oakland have issues with violent crime, vandalism, and theft. Often, criminals get away because the police don't have the resources to track them. For example: Just two nights ago, a crazy homeless man tried to assault me with cinder blocks. Had I not been able to outrun him, I'd certainly be in the hospital. I called the cops, but by the time they arrived, the man had taken off on bicycle. The police couldn't find him. He'll likely victimize quite a few more people before he's caught. Last week, an intoxicated driver hit a parked car in front of my home and drove off. Cops couldn't track the car. The driver is still out there and still a danger to others. On a bike ride a couple months ago, a driver got behind me in the bike lane and yelled that he would run me over. Again, no arrest. The likelihood of being caught is incredibly low, and antisocial people know this. Better surveillance of public areas would increase the chance of arrest and discourage such psychopathic behavior. I'm having a really hard time imagining a scenario in which this cure is worse than the disease. It is other civilians who endanger my life on a monthly basis, not police.

nitrogen 10y ago
I'm not convinced that survrillance tools will cure what appears to be a lack of effort from police. They probably have things they consider more important to investigate than your encounters in Oakland or the thousands of dollars of equipment I had stolen from myself and my startup a couple years ago. I'm confident that all of these things could be solved with data already available to the police, with a bit of investigative effort. I don't think more surveillance in their direct control would help.
- ggreer 10y ago
  I think of it like a sales funnel: 1. A certain number of crimes are committed. 2. Of those, a certain number are relatively easy to solve (thanks to surveillance or dumb criminals or luck). 3. Of those, a certain number are actually solved by police. (Because they have the inclination and time to do so.) I think improving (2) will help, even if (3) also needs work. Though in my experience, OPD has spent a significant amount of time and effort attempting to both document and solve crimes.
- CalChris 10y ago
  I live in Oakland as well. The police here are not very good. They been under Federal oversight. There's a current sex scandal (involving a bunch of East Bay departments). We've run through several chiefs in short order. They were completely out of control during Occupy. Surveillance hardware is just more toys. It's the culture that needs to be fixed. I'd like to see a bachelors degree (currently a GED) and Oakland residency required.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    As I understand it, police often don't want to live and work in the same city. There's the risk of running into the guy they busted for slinging drugs while grocery shopping with spouse and kids, and avoiding that by living the next town over is an attractive proposition. Requiring a degree is likely going to skew the racial mix of OPD more.
oxide 10y ago
I don't honestly believe that the allocation of additional surveillance resources would have helped. What's more likely, IMO, is that the crimes you described would never be solved even with millions of dollars in surveillance resources allocated to Oakland. Also, this is one side of a story. Who's to say you aren't making things up, exaggerating, or even minimizing your provocation? Do you think surveillance resources would have been best used solving a case of road rage? How many drones and cameras should have been used to bring justice to a mentally ill homeless man? Would you have preferred a helicopter was deployed to locate a damaged car that may or may not have struck your vehicle? The truth about crime is that most of it goes unpunished, a fact every adult has to come to terms with eventually. There aren't enough cameras in the world to stop a cop from filing your police report in a stack of paperwork and forgetting about it.
- ggreer 10y ago
  That's a very uncharitable reading of my comment. I'm curious how I could provoke someone into attacking me with cinder blocks or threatening to run me over while driving in a bike lane. To me, it sounds like you're either calling me a liar or victim-blaming. I'm not saying the cops should have used expensive equipment like helicopters. But cameras –even stationary ones– could have recorded the license plate numbers (and perhaps faces) of the drivers. In the case of the homeless man's attack, the police spent a good couple of hours getting more information. They went around the neighborhood and knocked on doors asking for footage from security cameras. A more centralized system of surveillance cameras could have tracked the man's movements and helped the cops both find and identify him. More automation and surveillance would not ensure these people were caught, but it would increase the likelihood enough to discourage such behavior.
  - mixmastamyk 10y ago
    Sounds like you might benefit from a cheap security camera on your bike, car, or backpack that can be started quickly. Must be cheap by now.
santaclaus 10y ago
> On a bike ride a couple months ago, a driver got behind me in the bike lane and yelled that he would run me over. Again, no arrest. Any bike lane enforcement in Oakland would be amazing. The bike lane on Mandela is perpetually used as overflow parking...
throw2016 10y ago
How will surveillance stop antisocial or crazy individuals from attacking others? By the time there is a response the attack will already have happened, so surveillance will not prevent the attack. Crazy or mentally imbalanced individuls by definition do not care about legal consequences, they could attack you right in front of a cop, that's why they are crazy. The idea that antisocial elements will be discouraged because of surveillance basically translates into a surveillance state as there is no way yet in the modern world to predict how, when and by who 'antisocial' behavior occurs. So you are advocating monitoring everyone in all public places 24/7 the idea being anyone contemplating illegal action is aware of the surveillance and modifies their behavior. Won't getting some body guards be a better option than attempting to inflict a surveillance state on everyone in your quest for absolute safety. Reasonable people accept there is a cost and tradeoff for freedom and liberty. One can make a case for better policing but this option takes us straight to the bottom of the slippery slope.
- ggreer 10y ago
  > By the time there is a response the attack will already have happened, so surveillance will not prevent the attack. Crazy or mentally imbalanced individuls by definition do not care about legal consequences, they could attack you right in front of a cop, that's why they are crazy. That proves too much. One can use the same justification to argue against police existing. Cops can't be everywhere at once, so they can't prevent attacks. They can only respond. And crazy people don't care about consequences, so why have police? The answer is that you want to minimize the number of crimes a person commits before being caught. Giving police better tools (in the form of recording what goes on in public spaces, subject to oversight) can help with that. This is also borne-out by the number of private places with security cameras. These cameras don't stop people from committing crimes, but they do help police catch criminals. They're far more effective than eyewitness descriptions or composite sketches. > So you are advocating monitoring everyone in all public places 24/7 the idea being anyone contemplating illegal action is aware of the surveillance and modifies their behavior. No. I'm saying the current political climate is far too worried about police surveillance and not worried enough about violence perpetrated by civilians. It's like fearing shark attacks when the most common threat is drowning. > Won't getting some body guards be a better option than attempting to inflict a surveillance state on everyone in your quest for absolute safety. Please don't be absurd. Like most people, I can't afford bodyguards. And I'm not seeking absolute safety. I just don't want to be put in threatening situations on a monthly basis.
ubernostrum 10y ago
I really highly suggest you start reading some dashcam forums. You'll see stories from people who have indisputable surveillance footage of crime, and are told that it's not worth the time it would take to investigate/arrest/prosecute, or that even a clear video of a vehicle and license plate is insufficient evidence if it doesn't also clearly capture an image of the driver (in most jurisdictions, the driver is guilty of infractions, not the vehicle's owner). Similarly, you can find plenty of stories of thefts which were deemed too low-value (in absolute dollar amount) to be worth police effort despite on-property surveillance clearly showing perpetrators. And the same for other types of crime. 24/7/365 audio and video of every person in the city would not change this. If someone told you it would, that person was lying to you or was misinformed.

by ggreer 10y ago

nitrogen 10y ago

I'm not convinced that survrillance tools will cure what appears to be a lack of effort from police. They probably have things they consider more important to investigate than your encounters in Oakland or the thousands of dollars of equipment I had stolen from myself and my startup a couple years ago. I'm confident that all of these things could be solved with data already available to the police, with a bit of investigative effort. I don't think more surveillance in their direct control would help.

ggreer 10y ago
I think of it like a sales funnel: 1. A certain number of crimes are committed. 2. Of those, a certain number are relatively easy to solve (thanks to surveillance or dumb criminals or luck). 3. Of those, a certain number are actually solved by police. (Because they have the inclination and time to do so.) I think improving (2) will help, even if (3) also needs work. Though in my experience, OPD has spent a significant amount of time and effort attempting to both document and solve crimes.
CalChris 10y ago
I live in Oakland as well. The police here are not very good. They been under Federal oversight. There's a current sex scandal (involving a bunch of East Bay departments). We've run through several chiefs in short order. They were completely out of control during Occupy. Surveillance hardware is just more toys. It's the culture that needs to be fixed. I'd like to see a bachelors degree (currently a GED) and Oakland residency required.
- Kalium 10y ago
  As I understand it, police often don't want to live and work in the same city. There's the risk of running into the guy they busted for slinging drugs while grocery shopping with spouse and kids, and avoiding that by living the next town over is an attractive proposition. Requiring a degree is likely going to skew the racial mix of OPD more.

oxide 10y ago

I don't honestly believe that the allocation of additional surveillance resources would have helped. What's more likely, IMO, is that the crimes you described would never be solved even with millions of dollars in surveillance resources allocated to Oakland. Also, this is one side of a story. Who's to say you aren't making things up, exaggerating, or even minimizing your provocation? Do you think surveillance resources would have been best used solving a case of road rage? How many drones and cameras should have been used to bring justice to a mentally ill homeless man? Would you have preferred a helicopter was deployed to locate a damaged car that may or may not have struck your vehicle? The truth about crime is that most of it goes unpunished, a fact every adult has to come to terms with eventually. There aren't enough cameras in the world to stop a cop from filing your police report in a stack of paperwork and forgetting about it.

ggreer 10y ago
That's a very uncharitable reading of my comment. I'm curious how I could provoke someone into attacking me with cinder blocks or threatening to run me over while driving in a bike lane. To me, it sounds like you're either calling me a liar or victim-blaming. I'm not saying the cops should have used expensive equipment like helicopters. But cameras –even stationary ones– could have recorded the license plate numbers (and perhaps faces) of the drivers. In the case of the homeless man's attack, the police spent a good couple of hours getting more information. They went around the neighborhood and knocked on doors asking for footage from security cameras. A more centralized system of surveillance cameras could have tracked the man's movements and helped the cops both find and identify him. More automation and surveillance would not ensure these people were caught, but it would increase the likelihood enough to discourage such behavior.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  Sounds like you might benefit from a cheap security camera on your bike, car, or backpack that can be started quickly. Must be cheap by now.

santaclaus 10y ago

> On a bike ride a couple months ago, a driver got behind me in the bike lane and yelled that he would run me over. Again, no arrest. Any bike lane enforcement in Oakland would be amazing. The bike lane on Mandela is perpetually used as overflow parking...

throw2016 10y ago

How will surveillance stop antisocial or crazy individuals from attacking others? By the time there is a response the attack will already have happened, so surveillance will not prevent the attack. Crazy or mentally imbalanced individuls by definition do not care about legal consequences, they could attack you right in front of a cop, that's why they are crazy. The idea that antisocial elements will be discouraged because of surveillance basically translates into a surveillance state as there is no way yet in the modern world to predict how, when and by who 'antisocial' behavior occurs. So you are advocating monitoring everyone in all public places 24/7 the idea being anyone contemplating illegal action is aware of the surveillance and modifies their behavior. Won't getting some body guards be a better option than attempting to inflict a surveillance state on everyone in your quest for absolute safety. Reasonable people accept there is a cost and tradeoff for freedom and liberty. One can make a case for better policing but this option takes us straight to the bottom of the slippery slope.

ggreer 10y ago
> By the time there is a response the attack will already have happened, so surveillance will not prevent the attack. Crazy or mentally imbalanced individuls by definition do not care about legal consequences, they could attack you right in front of a cop, that's why they are crazy. That proves too much. One can use the same justification to argue against police existing. Cops can't be everywhere at once, so they can't prevent attacks. They can only respond. And crazy people don't care about consequences, so why have police? The answer is that you want to minimize the number of crimes a person commits before being caught. Giving police better tools (in the form of recording what goes on in public spaces, subject to oversight) can help with that. This is also borne-out by the number of private places with security cameras. These cameras don't stop people from committing crimes, but they do help police catch criminals. They're far more effective than eyewitness descriptions or composite sketches. > So you are advocating monitoring everyone in all public places 24/7 the idea being anyone contemplating illegal action is aware of the surveillance and modifies their behavior. No. I'm saying the current political climate is far too worried about police surveillance and not worried enough about violence perpetrated by civilians. It's like fearing shark attacks when the most common threat is drowning. > Won't getting some body guards be a better option than attempting to inflict a surveillance state on everyone in your quest for absolute safety. Please don't be absurd. Like most people, I can't afford bodyguards. And I'm not seeking absolute safety. I just don't want to be put in threatening situations on a monthly basis.

ubernostrum 10y ago

I really highly suggest you start reading some dashcam forums. You'll see stories from people who have indisputable surveillance footage of crime, and are told that it's not worth the time it would take to investigate/arrest/prosecute, or that even a clear video of a vehicle and license plate is insufficient evidence if it doesn't also clearly capture an image of the driver (in most jurisdictions, the driver is guilty of infractions, not the vehicle's owner). Similarly, you can find plenty of stories of thefts which were deemed too low-value (in absolute dollar amount) to be worth police effort despite on-property surveillance clearly showing perpetrators. And the same for other types of crime. 24/7/365 audio and video of every person in the city would not change this. If someone told you it would, that person was lying to you or was misinformed.