4 ms·
Why would a simple vandalism charge go to a grand jury?
by SoftTalker 2mo ago
Why would a simple vandalism charge go to a grand jury?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- wl 2mo agoFelonies go before a grand jury in Ohio. The article talks about damages in excess of $1,000, which probably means it's a felony charge on that basis.
- goda90 2mo agoWhat makes an ALPR cost more than $1000 per unit?
- kiddico 2mo agoThe markup I assume
- s_tec 2mo agoProbably the pole, footing, and wages for the installation crew.
- kirykl 2mo agoThe starting value of felony
- KPGv2 2mo agoA quick google reveals a Flock camera costs about $2500 and there's a few hundred dollars in install fees.
- parineum 2mo agoHigh quality cameras are expensive.
- dawnerd 2mo agoEquivalent quality cameras can be had for 100-200. Not that expensive.
- SoftTalker 2mo agoIn a weather-proof, UV-resistant housing, with battery and solar panel for charging, designed to meet municipal and traffic safety specs, and with turn-key service, all at the usual markup for dealing with all that and because there are almost no competitive alternatives, it sounds pretty typical. Even a simple stop sign is hundreds of dollars when you consider all the costs associated with its installation.
- dawnerd 2mo agoLook up guardrail guy's video on their installs. They are not up to code. Even the newer installs that do include breakaways are failing.
- mlrtime 2mo agohttps://store.ui.com/us/en/products/uvc-ai-lpr https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/uvc-ai-lpr $500 for one of the best [that I know of] consumer LPR cameras. Non-consumer versions go for thousands.
- dawnerd 2mo agoAnd the cameras Flock are using are no where near that good of quality. The claim was high quality cameras are expensive. Flock is using pretty cheap components. There's been multiple tear-downs showing just how budget built they are.
- ibejoeb 2mo agoAll the reasons in the other repliues, and it's also not just an ALPR.
- gosub100 2mo agoGo tear one down and see for yourself. We don't want to ruin the surprise for you.
- Sohcahtoa82 2mo agoFraming Flock as just an ALPR always feels disingenuous to me. More charitably, it's at least naive. And even if it WAS and will only ever be an ALPR, I'm incredulous that people would accept it.
- burnt-resistor 2mo agoYes, stop calling them "ALPRs" because they're not. It's the surveillance industry's marketing wank to make them seem benign, limited, and a police tool when it's (and similar products) really a video/audio?/wifi?/bt?/sdr?* panopticon that generates fallible metadata about maybe you, maybe your car, and maybe your stuff that will be saved forever, to be offered for sale forever to almost any company, government, or individual in the world with money for any purpose. They say they'll delete "data" in X days, but what they really mean is original source video only. There's no guarantee they'll delete anything else because their moneymaker is compiling sellable "histories" of and AI training data about people, vehicles, and other objects. Streetlight light sensor ports are being used to retrofit lights with smart lights containing advanced neighborhood spy "cameras" with additional features. So there's more than just standalone or telephone pole-mounted "ALPRs". * It's not a huge cost and there's obvious motivations to iterate to include additional sensors &| radios to gather additional raw data by using the fleet of "ALPRs" as a platform. Many "ALPRs" have microphones. Some smart streetlight ones do wifi/bt fingerprinting.
- Someone1234 2mo agoLooks like in Ohio the thresholds are: - 0 to $999: misdemeanor - 1K: 5th-degree felony - 7.5K-150K: 4th-degree felony - 150K+: 3th-degree felony But what I found interesting is - They aren't automatically inflation adjusted, it has to be manually adjusted by legislation. Which hasn't been done since 2011 meaning that in 2026 terms it would be $1.5K~ for a 5th-degree felony for like-for-like level of damage. Kind of nuts how a poorly written law can increase the number of felonies just due to inflation alone. Although a lot of things aren't automatically inflation adjusted (e.g. minimum wage), and I think commonly it is on purpose rather than an accident. They WANT harsher sentences for relative low crimes.
- testing22321 2mo ago> Although a lot of things aren't automatically inflation adjusted (e.g. minimum wage) You know what is, though? The annual budget a senator is allocated for furniture in their office. This year it’s $40,000. Priorities.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- preg_match 2mo agoPart of me feels this is intentional. I have a hard time believing legislators don’t know about inflation. Most politicians are trying to maximize the people put behind bars, and this is one subtle systemic way to contribute to that.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- alistairSH 2mo agoBecause that's how you get a felony criminal case started in Ohio (and most, if not all, states and any federal felony cases).
- Zigurd 2mo agoThe simplest reason the indictment failed is that a felony charge amounts to overcharging in this case. Go one layer deeper and you find that cops and prosecutors assume the public likes a "tough on crime" approach, even when a lot of the public think Flock has bought off their local officials to pay Flock to run obnoxious surveillance tools with tax money.
- SoftTalker 2mo agoPublic attitudes may be changing. At least for Federal cases, it is quite rare for a grand jury to return a "no bill" or refuse to indict. Presumably, because federal prosecutors normally have their ducks in a row and present a strong case, or if they don't have a strong case, they don't waste time even bringing it to a grand jury. However, per Wikipedia, "Beginning in late 2025, legal observers documented a marked increase in no-bill decisions in federal cases, particularly in matters arising from protest-related activity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury#cite_note-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury#cite_note-37
- alistairSH 2mo agoYeah, feels like two things contributing there... 1 - Trump fired many of the good prosecutors. Or made life miserable enough those prosecutors left the job for better paying private sector gigs. 2 - Trump has propensity to sue or charge anything that moves. "Boy who cried wolf" problem. See also: arresting people for taking peeling paint out of the reflecting pool, even when his own DoJ says it was a botched installation.
- nemomarx 2mo agoYeah I'm not sure this is public attitudes so much as creeping incompetence from recent political appointments, at least at the federal level. However that doesn't explain Ohio doing it as neatly, unless I've missed some local politics there.