Surveillance Cameras a Bust?
Via this week’s Dupont Current comes a nice scoop: The police cameras installed across the city under the reign of police Chief Charles H. Ramsey may well be worthless. The Current discusses a pair of incidents around Adams Morgan that occurred within range of such cameras, yet they yielded no useful clues/evidence for the crimes. The incidents in question include an April break-in at Asylum on 18th Street and a shooting at 17th and Euclid streets in February.
Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham tells the Current: “I think we have to approach this with limited expectations about what the cameras can achieve.”
Right on. The cameras are a colossal waste of time and money, and a distraction from the difficult job of fighting crime in the District. They came through on one front that was terribly important to Ramsey: public relations.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Give me a break. Jim Graham was one of the biggest supporters of these cameras going in and now he’s flip flopping on the issue. I swear I’m buying the man a pair of Tevas because he’s become the biggest flip flopper on the Council, I might even go so far as to say in District!
June 21st, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I couldn’t disagree more. You’re mistaking flip-flopping for Mr. Graham’s careful probing of the various dimensions of political issues.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Flip flops are in the height of fashion this season. No wonder even the Councilmembers flip flop. Hahahahahahaha.
Now, the cameras are quite useless indeed. Installed in the vicinity of Dupont Circle, for example, they film little more than scenes from alternative lifestyles. As if the ordinary citizens are quite unable to appreciate them without the help of this technological device anyway.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Last year, a boy was shot around 1-2pm near 14th and Girard. A week later the city installed a camera 15 feet from the shooting (it was planned before the shooting). One year later, multiple shootings occur on the same block, including a 13 yr old boy who was killed at approximately the same location. Never once did I hear from MPD that footage from the camera help the investigations. Perhaps they did help but no one claim it publicly?
Oh, and Jim Graham flipflopping? Well, people are allowed to change their minds. He simply knows the theatre of city politics too well to say anything else.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Oh, and Jim Graham? Flip-flopping?
Oh, those are things the Jim Grahams do for a living while making a living off the mass of suckers (DC taxpayers, in this particular case). And not quite bad living at that.
Oh, what a parasite.