Posted on 07/15/2011 3:39:01 PM PDT by thecodont
In a novel effort to increase surveillance in a crime-plagued area, Oakland city leaders have purchased a batch of cameras for merchants in the Fruitvale district who were unable to afford them.
The deal with the merchants, who must allow police to view the footage, comes three months after the slaying of a community leader in Fruitvale, and as the city attorney's office seeks a civil injunction against alleged gang members in the neighborhood.
The roughly 30 cameras were paid for with $35,000 in redevelopment money. They will be installed inside and outside of local businesses, including Otaez Restaurant, where robbers shot owner Jesus "Chuy" Campos to death on April 8.
"Everyone was well aware of the level of crime," said Jose Dorado, 63, who owns a bookkeeping business and was raised in the neighborhood. But the Campos killing "brought issues to a head. That pretty much woke everybody up."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/14/BAHQ1KAHEE.DTL#ixzz1SDPsS5E8
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I certainly hope that the cameras have been properly adjusted so as to not show any bias against minorities. Because if the camera shows racial disproportionality, it’s racist.... :P
I heard that Oakland has a big population of minorities. So we figure most caught on camera would be minority just based on the population. Maybe that’s racist even in a largely minority area????
I heard somebody once say that the ghettos of our cities have great untapped economic potential. This person said that, instead of people fearing the ghetto, that it’s possible that the ghettos will become tourist attractions, such as Chinatowns in many cities attract tourists.
Well, I would agree that the ghetto has hit rock bottom, and there’s nowhere to go but up. But large scale tourism seems quite a long way off!!
$1000 per camera sounds a bit steep.
There is readily available technology to couple these cameras to computers running face-recognition software, so that after 30-40 “youths” collect five-finger discounts on merchandise in some Oakland store, over the next few hours police could show up at their doors and perp-walk the little shits down to the station. The ACLU will go nuts, of course.
“This person said that, instead of people fearing the ghetto, that it’s possible that the ghettos will become tourist attractions, such as Chinatowns in many cities attract tourists.”
You would need to use those large vehicles that are used for glacier tours (that protect from polar bears), or those amphibious DUKWs that some cities use so that if you kick over a hive you can just flee to one of the many moats that tend to surround our worst areas.
I hope those camera take better quality pictures that what I’ve seen on some of those crime/forensics shows. At $1,000 a pop the damn things should look like Blu-Ray - or mebbe some politicians friend/relative had the camera contract.
Must be those new “stick figure” cameras: every time the camera sees a person, it digitally replaces him in the video with a stick figure.
The main reason people go to Chinatown is for the restaurants. While ghetto areas might have some good eateries, most people might not trust the sanitation.
The reason people fear the ghetto is the (quite rational) fear of being mugged.
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