LAPD Surveillance Cameras Go Unused

First time accepted submitter Ethanol-fueled writes "Most of the surveillance cameras installed downtown and operated by the LAPD have not been working for two years, according to interviews and records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Many of those broke and were never repaired, and six cameras allocated to the Little Tokyo section weren't even plugged into the LAPD's monitoring bank. In one case, a 53-year-old man died after being stabbed and beaten in Skid Row — right below one of the malfunctioned cameras. It probably also didn't help that the cameras themselves were prone to being coated with pigeon droppings and the system backend being stored in a room so small that overheating was frequent. One LAPD Deputy Chief compared the situation to buying a used car without an extended warranty — 'We know the reasons it doesn't work. Now we're trying to make it work.'"

Comments

wear and tear

[Christopher_Wood]

I've worked with cops and I'm not terribly surprised - "excessive" wear and tear was always a problem. This isn't the first expensive system I've heard of being kept in a closet. Give it a few years and the dust might have been a factor too.

(I'm not sure if it's actually a surveillance state if nobody's looking through the broken cameras.)

Re:wear and tear

[vlm]

(I'm not sure if it's actually a surveillance state if nobody's looking through the broken cameras.)

The purpose of a surveillance state is to encourage fear and intimidation and conformity and servility. You don't need to actually use the cameras to infect society with those values... just install them. Its to intimidate the permanently downwardly mobile middle class and the 60's radicals now turned grandparents, not to scare the lower class criminals.

Re:Spending, not solutions

[cusco]

I'm glad you got modded up, I would have if I hadn't commented elsewhere in the thread. I work in the physical security industry (key cards, alarm systems, cameras, etc.) and it never fails to amaze me the new and inventive ways that corporations find to waste money just in my field. A local power company (not our customer) spent what I would guess to be $30,000 to put a camera and alarm system on a pole yard, but didn't spend the $5,000 to finish the fence across the back side of the lot. Cameras and alarms were from one chunk of budget, fencing had to come from maintenance and facilities budget. One example of many.