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Boston Cops Go Undercover Online To Crack Down on Concerts

Posted by timothy on from the on-the-internet-dog dept.

Boston Police, according to an article at Slate, are engaging in a strange use of social media to fight crime. Or at least, to stop raucous music from disturbing the city. As the Slate writer says, "While police departments have been using social media to investigate for years, its use in such seemingly trivial crimes would be rather chilling, if these efforts didn’t seem so laughably inept."

22 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. What a waste by PapayaSF · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OK, I can see why cops go undercover to prevent murders and bank robberies and such, but to head off noise complaints? Is there some reason why simply to responding to noise complaints isn't enough? Are there no longer any murders, rapes, and robberies in Boston to investigate or prevent? What a waste.

    --
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    1. Re:What a waste by ShaunC · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's a lot easier to get paid to sit at a desk and troll Facebook all day.

      --
      Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
    2. Re:What a waste by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A few simple questions to ask.

      1) in what neighborhoods are these proactive activities being conducted?

      2) what demographics specifically are benefitted by this malappropriation of resources?

      Consider how the Kennedys managed to halt the cape windfarm project buildout for decades, because they didn't want to see any windmills from their summer homes.

      Now... consider: "Martha's Vineyard + roudy teenagers with loud music", interrupting their wealthy, well to do lifestyles. (Yes, I know MV is not in boston. I am pointing at the stereotype.)

      It isn't hard for me to see this kind of thing happening, if "Mr Kennedy is being disturbed by all those rave parties down the street."

      The issue isn't that cracking down on rave parties has more merit than cracking down on rape, armed robbery, kidnappings, etc. It is that "the wishes of wealthy and influential citizens" are more important than those things.

      Just something to think about.

    3. Re:What a waste by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know about that. I used Facebook for a few days, once, and having to scroll through the endless inane shit (even of people you know) is enough to make you want to use your service revolver on yourself.

    4. Re:What a waste by Shoten · · Score: 5, Funny

      OK, I can see why cops go undercover to prevent murders and bank robberies and such, but to head off noise complaints? Is there some reason why simply to responding to noise complaints isn't enough? Are there no longer any murders, rapes, and robberies in Boston to investigate or prevent? What a waste.

      These are the chuckleheads who found lite-brites with pictures of Mooninites (from Aqua Teen Hunger Force) around the city, and treated them like some kind of nuclear bomb with a ticking clock.

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    5. Re:What a waste by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bingo! I've been called in to fix and upgrade computers for the cops in my area and it always amazed me how much time they just waste doing dumb shit on the PC, but hell I've found that is true of pretty much any government org. There is one secretary at the county clerks office I honestly am hoping will break soon since she hasn't been in in a year and I'm curious to see what amount of time she has wasted in Freecell to date, last time I worked on her maybe 3 year old PC she had something like 10,000 hours in Freecell, just nuts.

      But this isn't something new, cops like to say they "work online" as it sounds cooler and they don't have to leave the AC and the donuts. I ran a chat board for PC problems in the 90s when that whole "to catch a predator" shit became popular and I don't know how many times I had to threaten to file harassment charges because of cops talking dirty on the board. I finally asked a few of them "WTF makes you think a board with such stimulating topics like "No sound in Win95" and "Can't find a printer driver WinNT" is gonna be the place to pretend to be jailbait?" and they came right out and said pretty much all the social boards were already being trolled by cops, so they were just picking random places that weren't already being trolled.

      So even back then you had cops doing shit that was completely fucking pointless, but they could tell their boss "hey we are working online" and get paid to sit on their asses. This is what happens when you have zero oversight as I'm sure the people of Boston would rather have safer streets and less muggings and rapes but then they'd have to get up, go to the car, actually drive around...that is like work folks, can't have that.

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    6. Re:What a waste by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...what amount of time she has wasted in Freecell to date, last time I worked on her maybe 3 year old PC she had something like 10,000 hours in Freecell, just nuts.

      Considering a typical working years is roughly 1,500-1,600 hours a year, accounting for less than half the hours spent on Freecell, I guess she must have had a lot of overtime and work-weekends.

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    7. Re:What a waste by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Funny

      just leaving it on 24/7. I guess she just wants to screw around with the Big Brother system they have since they can see how many hours freecell or a browser has been online - so if they start complaining she can say that they should pay for the overtime since according to their calculations she has worked 12 years in the past 3(totalling the time for office, freecell and couple of other windows that have been open 24/7).

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      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    8. Re:What a waste by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      there's every reason to criticize these assholes.

      I mean, WHAT THE FUCK? it's illegal to have house parties in boston now? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? you can't ask some guy with a guitar to come over to your house and some other guys to listen? WHO THE FUCK LOBBIED FOR THIS? the bar owners association? mobsters who get a cut from bouncers?

      I mean, it's clearly different from just being ordnance against making a racket - if it was that then it would be reactive.
      And this needs cops who could be patrolling street corners known for dope selling and muggings. or you know going to places where actual realtime noise complaints are made from. but I suppose it's safer and easier to just bully some hipsters.

      if anything these guys should be - and probably as we speak are - trolled to going to joke meetings they have no right to disperse. wear togas while waiting for them to show up.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    9. Re:What a waste by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They could do, you know, what police used to do before they all became lazy. Back in the day we called it 'Walking a beat'. You know we'd go and assign them a neighbor and they could direct lost kids home, help old ladies cross the street, etc. All sorts of little things they did made neighborhoods want to have a cop around, rather then never wanting to see them. Not that there weren't bad cops back then, there were, but even the bad ones tended to do some good... Now 'innocent' people don't trust them and they only seem to do crap like this story....

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    10. Re:What a waste by jklovanc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lets take a look at a couple of scenarios;
      1. A cop on the internet spending a couple of hours to find a DIY event, a couple of cops to show up and tell them not to run it and a couple of cops to show up on the appointed time to verify it didn't happen.
      Total manpower usage 4 hours.
      2, Respond to a noise complaint at midnight to find 100 drunken punk rockers at a DIY event. That would require the following to break up;
      * at least 10 cops for 2 to 3 hours
      * Transport to jail for at least 5-10 idiots who start fights
      * booking time,
      * court timetime,
      * public service administration
      Total time a couple hundred hours.
      Which would you think is a better use of resources? Preventing a loud party is much simpler than stopping one in progress.

    11. Re:What a waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now now, just calm down bro! I know as a young hip 18 year old kid you think loud music is a right outlined in the Constitution, but some of us -- real adults with real jobs and children to take care of -- actually NEED to sleep.

      You see we have careers, and work all day. Then we come home for some much needed rest and to spend time with our family. We do this practically every day of the week, even Saturdays! Crazy, I know. So you can imagine, it's tough when a bunch of pot-smoking retards around your age insist that they need to blast music as loud as possible, louder than any normal level you'd listen to music at, and get crazy and fight in their front yard and keep the whole neighborhood awake, because they are young and rule the world and won't live to be 30 and YOLO, etc.

      These wild partying kids have no jobs, no responsibilities, no children, and their parents clean up and pay for them. But as an adult, nobody takes are of us. We take care of ourselves! So we really do need sleep, and we've spent good money -- not your Mom and Dad's money, our own _real_ money -- to get a home in a decent neighborhood that should be relatively free of pointless noise.

      I know this is confusing and doesn't make a lot of sense. Someday when you are a grown-up adult with adult responsibilities, a job, and a family to take care of, it will all make sense. I would hope at some point today you'll take that joint out of your mouth, stumble across the empty beer cans strewn about your floor, and go outside to observe what real people are actually like in reality. They are working, and they are tired. Is a peaceful sleep too much for them to ask? I think not.

      You'll understand someday! I was a crazy kid like you who liked loud music once too, and then I grew up and gave up on my childish, immature, selfish, self-centered ways. So turn that noise down, and realize the Boston police are trying to do what's right for the hard working citizens with real adult responsibilities. Just sayin'.

    12. Re:What a waste by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

      Try actually reading the post that you're replying to. You know, bits like:

      And this needs cops who could be patrolling street corners known for dope selling and muggings. or you know going to places where actual realtime noise complaints are made from.

    13. Re:What a waste by chrismcb · · Score: 3, Informative

      You do not have a right to party as loud and as long you may want.

      You DO have the right to party as long as you want. But yeah you can be loud, use illegal drugs, park illegally, serve minors... But how about we bust people AFTER they commit the crime, not before they MIGHT commit a crime.

    14. Re:What a waste by Gabrill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh no, not at all. They merely want to make every free act a gray area in court, so they can selectively prosecute whomever they wish.

      --
      Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
  2. Y undercover? by markdavis · · Score: 4, Informative

    >"loud rock shows can, in fact, be a nuisance to neighbors, as many of the people who put the shows on will admit. "

    Of course they are. In fact, to many people (myself included), such noise in a residential area is not a "trivial crime" at all. But why is it necessary to go undercover? Isn't it easier to wait for a noise complaint, then sent units over to wherever it is and start issuing tickets??

    1. Re:Y undercover? by abigsmurf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Having a couple of officers do undercover work to get the organisers is more efficient and effective then sending loads of officers to a concert, filling up the cells and having a high chance of the organisers getting away. It's also far more likely to discourage people from even attempting a show.

      Plus there's lots of stuff that goes with the concerts other than just noise; poor safety, drink driving, general vandalism to the area, all the stuff that licenced concerts have to plan for or try to prevent.

    2. Re:Y undercover? by Lemmeoutada+Collecti · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fair enough. As long as I can have the same cops troll every restaurant you frequent to prevent your two year old children from making noise that might disturb my meal. I am supposed to be eating, and I hate being robbed of a peaceful meal. And we all know, since you just specified that your two year olds are prone to crying hysterically, that there is a very real possibility there that MUST be addressed.

      Nothing is a crime until it has happened, and we are all innocent until proven guilty.

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  3. Or Not. by jelwell · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read the entire article, there's no proof that cops are going undercover. There's only proof that DIY show producers are paranoid. I'm more inclined to believe the latter.
    Joseph Elwell.

    1. Re:Or Not. by sconeu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Clearly, you're a cop trolling here. Nobody on Slashdot reads the articles.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  4. Bizarre Story by macwhizkid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, let's get this straight: there's no proof that the police are connected to this, just a half-baked assumption based on someone's analysis of a couple two-sentence emails? And the messages aren't even very funny anyway... ("LOL, he used the word concert . What a loser! Must be a cop!")

    Slashdot editors, you need to step up your game.

  5. Boston: The City of Hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you don't live in Boston then you wouldn't understand why we do the things we do. Have you ever gone driving on the Jamaicaway, walk around Berkley around 3:30pm on a Friday, tried talking to people on the street, parked at an inner city gas station that doesn't even have gas, getting a combo meal at Dunkin Donuts, used the Green Line, get a parking ticket in Beacon Hill for sitting in your car for 3 minutes, or done any of these delightful things in Boston? If you have then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Boston is the city of hate. Everyone from good old Tom Menino down to the foul-mouthed Red Sox fan knows that the primary objective is to maximize annoyance and dysfunction. The police wasting our time and money on this garbage so fits the profile of our fair city that nothing surprises me. If you disagree, then you've never been to the court house in Roxbury or the police station in Jamaica Plain. I can't see how any institutions could be managed worse. Remember the JP clerk that tampered with the evidence of thousands of drug cases? Eh, we'll forget about that. Instead let's try to chum up to some lousy Harvard/young person ideal by using Facebook to do everything. Remember, the crippling failures who are administering essential services in our city are utterly hopeless and need something to distract themselves with, otherwise they'd try to do their job and end up doing more damage. If you've never had a taste of this while living in Boston then clearly you're living under a rock or working for some very insular ultra-elitist academic cell. Say, dood, mind if I come ova to your office and tak about the Patriots? See what I mean?