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LAPD Surveillance Cameras Go Unused

Posted by samzenpus on from the unopened-mechanized-eye dept.

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.'"

12 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Whats new? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure all the politicians were patting each other on the back the day they installed it. And I'm sure their Security industry golf buddies got a nice contract and sent a fat kick-back.

    I don't think anyone is surprised no one actually gave a damn about it.

  2. wear and tear by Christopher_Wood · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.)

    1. Re:wear and tear by vlm · · Score: 5, Informative

      (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.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:wear and tear by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Like when cop car cams were starting out and they were getting "broken" a lot? Yup, I remember those days in the 90's right after rodney king. the VCR in the trunk would get bashed, or the tapes would get magnetized a lot... (big honking magnet on the casing will screw it up badly)

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. Spending, not solutions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. Government has already made their money here. Once agan, I feel the need to point out that in the business of government -- where they spend other people's money -- there is no such thing as a loss. Even when they fail completely, they still win. Every dollar raked through the business of government increases their leverage, and their ability to exploit that cash flow for personal gain. It's no wonder that every year government costs more, both in terms of revenue and administration: that's exactly how the game is played, and that's exactly the kind of people who would desire power over others in the first place.

    1. Re:Spending, not solutions by frisket · · Score: 5, Insightful
      This has absolutely nothing whatever to do with "government".

      Companies are every bit as stupid as this, installing "new technology" because some dickhead at the top insisted on it, and omitted to make any provision for its continued operation. Everyone in IT knows this (see ./ articles passim).

      And let's not have any blather about "responsibility" either: companies are just as able to cover up the stupidities of their senior execs as government offices are.

      And while we're at it, let's skip the rubbish about "other people's money". Companies spend and mis-spend other people's money with impunity* every day — how the fuck do you think we got into the current recession? It sure as hell wasn't governments doing all those shady hedge fund deals with borrowed money; it was banks: those wonderful much-vaunted joint stock limited-liability business-can-do-no-wrong corporations, run by greed-raddled execs and owned by greedy or ignorant stockholders who actively or passively encouraged their activities.

      * Yes, impunity. The people responsible have been rewarded for their misdeeds, just like the cretins responsible for the government mismanagement which enabled it.

      This whole "let's just blame the government" nonsense is simply a blind cooked up by corporate shills trying to cover up their own ineptitude. The governments are equally to blame with the corporates for their foolishness and stupidity. Blaming just one of them alone isn't simply incorrect, it's dangerous.

    2. Re:Spending, not solutions by cusco · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    3. Re:Spending, not solutions by khallow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What happens when a business loses enough money that it goes out of business? It goes out of business. What happens when a government agency loses enough money that if it were a business it'd go out of business? It keeps making mistakes and often gets rewarded with increased fund or power for making those mistakes. (Eg, the federal government through several mistakes let terrorists take down the World Trade Center towers. Laws like the Patriot Act "fix" that by giving them more money and power.)

  4. A bad thing? by oakgrove · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My deepest and sincerest sympathies to the family of the murdered man but are cameras really the answer? How about more cops that know their beats and actually engage people without being dicks? That may actually make a real difference.

    --
    The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
  5. No surveillance by Wowsers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Look on the bright side, what with the police not liking themselves being filmed, what video evidence can there be of any police brutality with cameras not working?

    --
    Take Nobody's Word For It.
  6. whacky parse by minkie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I had to read the headline a couple of times before I realized it wasn't "LDAP cameras".

  7. Re:Ethanol-fueled by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You must know my history here to be surprised. I'm admittedly surprised that my submission was accepted. In fact, I just stumbled out of bed still reeking of booze to find this, and it's apparently not a hallucination.

    But seriously, guys. Not only did I live in Los Angeles for 3 years, but I wanted to address the "theater" part of the security theater as it relates to the trend of installing municipal cameras. Criminals will realize that they're bullshit and continue to, well, be criminals. The cop(s) assigned to watching the cameras could have instead walked the beat, arrested criminals, and got real work done.