Oops! I’m sure police station looked good on drawing board, in blueprints

It always amuses me when I’m passing through the area where the Morgan Park and Beverly neighborhoods converge. Because invariably, I have to pass the area police station on Monterey Avenue.



Watch out for those blooming leaves. They kept a police security camera at th Morgan Park District stationhouse from obtaining images of people who might have been trying to tamper with squad cars. Photograph provided by Public Building Commission.



I’m not necessarily knocking the new structure used by the Morgan Park police district, which looks from the outside (I’ve never had cause to set foot – voluntarily, or against my will – inside) like it is much more spacious and modern than the old structure.

THAT BUILDING HAD the look of a police stereotype – a neighborhood stationhouse that was probably far too cramped for all the activity of modern-day law enforcement that was performed there.

Yet it is a structure that I doubt I ever will forget. A part of me always expects to see the old bunker-like building when I drive through the area, and feels a sense of disappointment when I see the new one.

Similar, in fact, to the feelings I get whenever I drive north on the Dan Ryan Expressway and get to around 35^th Street – half expecting to see that whitewashed brick building where the White Sox play, and instead see the pink building with the big banner reminding me of the seven-year-old World Series title.

So excuse me for letting my sense of humor run wild when I read in the Chicago Tribune this weekend about the “criminal” activity that took place right in the police station parking lot.

BASED ON CIRCUMSTANTIAL evidence, it would seem that the activists who want to be in Chicago for the upcoming NATO conference had some mischief planned for the police.

A chunk of concrete with an anarchist “A” was placed in the parking lot so as to block some police squad cars from being able to move. Police later noticed that someone had been tampering with the lug nuts on some of the squad cars.

Some lug nuts were removed outright, while others merely had theirs loosened.

I used the word “mischief” to describe this activity because it seems the level of vandalism committed here was minor. We don’t get the image of a squad car trying to start up, then losing its tires in mid-chase.

WHOEVER DID THIS is definitely in the minor leagues of vandalism. I’d call him (or her) Mickey Mouse, except that would probably be a libelous statement toward all cartoon characters.

So why am I finding anything about this amusing?

It is the fact that this building, like many others, has security cameras set up so that police can watch anyone who happens to be approaching the building.

In fact, there are those people (even, occasionally, myself) who wonder if the Chicago Police Department is getting carried away with all the cameras it wants to erect.

YET PERHAPS WE should look at the Morgan Park District as an example of the potential for glitches.

Because it seems that the police station has a camera set up on its parking lot. Yet newly-bloomed leaves on area trees literally are blocking the camera’s view.

It is why the police do NOT have any video images that could be enhanced to give them crude pictures of the people who would want to commit such a dastardly deed – which on a certain level strikes me as being nothing more than mischief.

That is why no arrests are imminent. Police do not know who did this, and there’s a good chance they’re never going to figure it out.

UNLESS, BY CHANCE, the people who are doing this are stupid enough (ie., possessing big-enough egos) to think they can go back and do it again. Because now, the Chicago Tribune reports, there are officers positioned so they can watch the parking lot.

I’d hate to be the cop whose duty assignment that day is to sit and watch people park their cars.

But even moreso, I’d hate to be the guy who designed that stationhouse and placed security cameras without taking into account the outside greenery.

I don’t care how pretty it looked on the drafting table (or in today’s technology, on the computer screen).

THIS IS JUST too dippy of a reason for someone not to get caught.

I can’t help but envision the spirits of all those officers who worked throughout the decades at the old bunker-like building (the one whose address was 1830 W. Monterey Ave.) shaking their heads in disgust at the very thought.

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City to expand surveillance camera use

This probably isn’t the best time to be asking me what I think of those surveillance cameras that have the authority to issue traffic tickets even if no human being witnesses the alleged violation.

The City Council on Wednesday made some last-minute changes to a proposal that will expand the number of such cameras in use in Chicago. Those changes resulted in the 33-14 council vote in favor of the expansion desired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

THERE’S JUST SOMETHING about the whole unstaffed aspect of these cameras that bothers me. I don’t like the idea of a computer interpreting video and trying to make a decision about whether or not a traffic violation occurred.

Because as any of us who have ever had a computer crash on us before, computers are inherently stupid. They only know how to do what a human being has programmed them to do.

But like I said, I have a bit of a conflict. Because I recently got my “first ever” ticket as a result of one of those things.

For the record, I was driving last month through south suburban Riverdale (en route to an assignment for a suburban daily newspaper I do some work for). I was at a red light on Halsted Street, and when I saw that the traffic was clear, I made a right turn.

THE COMPUTERS SOMEHOW decided that I did not wait a long-enough time period to determine that traffic was clear so that I could make the turn.

The still video images included with the ticket that supposedly are the incontrovertible evidence of my “guilt” clearly show there was no oncoming traffic, and that there were none of those signs saying “No Turn on Red.”

But these things fall into someone’s judgment that I clearly disagree with, but whom someone has decided is more credible.

So I wound up making out the check for the $100 fine – which as it turns out was due by Tuesday. So I not only had to pay up to the IRS and the Illinois Department of Revenue by that date, I also had to cough up money to the Photo Enforcement Program.

I’M NOT IN the mood of letting these things accumulate to the point where officials could legally tow my car away without warning.

I’m broke – and anxiously awaiting my next round of paychecks. I’d consider asking my employer for help on this ticket, except that I recently got hit with a $34 parking garage fee while on assignment and I’m not even sure they’re going to cover that.

So perhaps I’m just a tad biased about these cameras and their potential to issue citations. Because I also remember a now-former suburban police chief who told me he discounted any arguments against the cameras on the grounds that large signs were erected telling people where they are located.

“You have to be pretty stupid to not see them,” that chief told me.

APPARENTLY, ALDERMEN FELT the same way, particularly since the increase in these cameras was depicted as an improvement in public safety for our young people – since most of the new cameras will be erected on polls near schools and parks.

But the “pretty stupid” people who don’t pay the cameras much mind on main streets are just as likely to ignore them if they’re driving through a school zone.

If anything, I wonder if it will give some people a false sense of security in that they think people will drive safer – even though some are determined to drive like meatheads regardless of circumstances.

To me, it’s almost like driving on a road in the woods and a deer suddenly walks into the path of a car. The deer likely thinks you’re going to stop for it. The presence of a camera that catches the “moment of impact” wouldn’t change things.

TOO MANY OF us act like we’re the deer, hoping for something to save us.

When perhaps we should be more closely watching the surroundings around us to keep ourselves safe.

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Should police get to shoot so much video? Does it really make us more secure?

Illinois has some of the toughest laws in the nation when it comes to taking pictures or shooting video of police in action. Depending on the specifics and the mood of the officers at the scene, it can be construed as a felony offense to whip out that video camera to catch moving pictures of our police at work.

Which is why it comes off as hypocritical to listen to law enforcement types rant about how much they need to have those cameras installed on lamp-posts and buildings all over the city – creating the impression that “someone’s watching you” at all times.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL Liberties Union on Tuesday issued a report that asks city government to quit installing new cameras until such a time that rules concerning the use of video from the existing cameras are devised.

While they offer up no specifics of wrong-doing in Chicago, the ACLU cites problems in other cities that have occurred when police got carried away with the cameras and the resulting pictures. The invasions of privacy can be extreme, the ACLU argues.

The reaction from police and city officials in Chicago is all-too-predictable. It amounts to a big fat, “Drop Dead!” to the ACLU.

Fourteenth Ward Alderman Edward Burke went so far as to tell the Chicago Sun-Times that the police cameras are “one of the most effective tools in law enforcement today,” while also claiming that the cameras are “very popular” with Chicago residents.

I DOUBT THAT.

I suspect that many people think of the cameras the same way the police themselves seem to react every time they discover someone is shooting video of themselves.

The laws that make it a crime to take pictures of the police in action were a knee-jerk reaction to the proliferation of devices capable of taking pictures. Someone whipping out their cellular telephone to capture an image of a cop?

My primitive cellphone takes such dumpy looking pictures that I would never envision using them for anything. But I’m also aware the newest generation of devices are capable of coming up with clearer images.

THE PEOPLE WHO argue on behalf of such laws claim it amounts to police harassment, almost as though someone expects a law enforcement officer to behave at a higher standard than the rest of us.

Actually, they are. Or they ought to be. I can’t help but think the people who like such laws merely don’t want to be forced to look whenever a cop screws up on the job – which is something that ought to be public. The police are supposed to be there to protect, not to harass (yes, you can insert your favorite Richard J. Daley line about the police “preserving disorder”right here) the people.

It makes me wonder how many people think back to those images from the early 1990s of Rodney King being beaten by police officers in Los Angeles, believing that the only thing “wrong” with that situation is that those cops should then have turned on the person shooting the grainy video and beaten her senseless too.

Or, closer to home, that bartender who was beaten a few years ago by an off-duty Chicago cop, only to have a private security camera capture the whole incident.

YET PUT CONTROL of the cameras into the hands of the police, and they don’t seem to mind such video. Perhaps because attorneys for the city will engage in lengthy court battles to keep incriminating shots private, and let only the carefully chosen shots that make them look at their best to ever be seen publicly.

Aside from the whole idea of the cameras being an invasion of privacy, I actually have a bigger objection to them – the fact that they may well create the illusion that we’re somehow more safe with having all those cameras in place.

A camera doesn’t somehow magically come to life and make an arrest, or use the physical force that might be necessary (I do accept the premise that there are certain limited circumstances when a police officer is justified in using force) at a crime scene to restore order.

For that, you need actual people in uniform in the neighborhoods. All a video camera will do is capture grainy images of crime taking place while no police officers were on hand to stop it.

CITY OFFICIALS CLAIM that cameras provided images that resulted in more than 4,500 arrests during the past five years – which the ACLU rightfully says is less than 1 percent of the arrest total in Chicago.

Which makes me think the only thing those cameras might actually accomplish is creating the illusion throughout the neighborhoods that someone is watching, while in reality the chances of a person committing a criminal act being caught are about the same as they always were – largely dependent on the lack of intelligence of the would-be criminal themselves.

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Cameras still give me the creeps

I have to confess that whenever I happen to be driving my car in Chicago and see off in the distance one of those blue-and-white Chicago Police boxes that contains surveillance cameras, my initial reaction is to wonder how my innocuous actions could possibly be distorted into something sinister.

For the fact is that we’re being watched. Somehow, the fact that the police try to justify the intrusion into our privacy by saying that the cameras are located in the open and only complete idiots don’t realize they are in place does not make me feel any better.

SO I WASN’T the least bit surprised to see that Chicago Tribune report this week about the cameras – the one with a headline of “Chicago is most closely watched city in America.”

Learning from the Tribune that the police are considering the cameras a success because they provided enough “evidence” erase any doubt that former Chicago Board of Education President Michael Scott committed suicide doesn’t ease my unease about the concept.

The idea that cameras could literally follow his car as he made what turned out to be a fatal drive seems a bit much – even though they did not manage to get the so-called “money shot,” the moment of death. Should it really be possible for camera to camera to capture someone’s journey?

What happens if something truly stupid captures police attention, thereby diverting attention from incidents that more legitimately would be worth police attention.

THAT IS THE part of all of this that has me curious. The Tribune reports that there has to be at least 10,000 individual cameras in this network – some of which are private, but with police being permitted to see the video.

That’s an awful lot of video.

Does the Chicago Police Department truly employ enough people where it can be said that every single cinematic moment captured on camera is studied in detail? If they do, that is one heck of an extensive use of manpower.

A part of me wishes that some of those officers could either be diverted to patrolling those streets (instead of looking at video), or that the money being used to pay for video studying could be shifted to other parts of the police budget.

BUT SOMEHOW, I get the feeling that we don’t have any such great use of manpower to study all that video. Which makes me wonder if the idea of getting caught committing some illegal act because of video evidence is more of a crapshoot than anything else.

Are there people who will wind up never being arrested because nobody was ever able to get around to checking that particular video segment? Or is there the chance that some criminal act will be missed because someone happened to shift to viewing a new camera’s output just moments before the crime took place?

It just seems to be an extensive video output whose resources could be better used elsewhere.

Now before anyone assumes I have some self-interest in this issue because I did something that happened to get captured on camera, I can say I did not.

OR, AT LEAST I don’t think I did. Let’s just say that if there is some video of me doing something funky, I have never been confronted by anyone about it.

But I must admit when I happen to be passing through a strange neighborhood (as in one I don’t usually hang out) and see one of these cameras with its flashing blue lights on top, I have to wonder if there really is someone watching me at that very moment.

And how incredibly bored they must be if they have nothing better to do than to watch me drive/ walk down the block. Should I do something to lighten up their day? Or should I just make some sort of rude gesture before walking away?

While the Tribune reported on a study that found one neighborhood reporting significant drops in crime when the cameras were put in place, I know most of the neighborhood activist types whom I have spoken with almost see the flashing blue lights as some sort of joke.

LIKE THE POLICE trying to impose the image in our brains that “the law” is omnipresent. Only the real criminals manage to figure out pretty quickly which parts of the block are within range of the cameras, and which spots are not.

Does this mean that all we’ve really accomplished is to cause crime to move a few feet away from where it once took place?

Or should we now view this video set-up as the Chicago equivalent of “America’s Stupidest Home Videos?”

What a relaxing thought. Smile!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: London is about three times the population of Chicago, yet has about half the number of (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-chicago-cameras-everywhere,0,1636617.story) public video cameras in use by police. As for New York, it has less than half of Chicago’s, and many of its cameras don’t work.