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California Mayors Demand Surveillance Cams On Crime-Ridden Highways (arstechnica.com) 137

Posted by msmash from the improved-security dept.
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: The 28 shootings along a 10-mile stretch of San Francisco-area highway over the past six months have led mayors of the adjacent cities to declare that these "murderous activities" have reached "crisis proportions." Four people have been killed and dozens injured. These five mayors want California Gov. Jerry Brown to fund surveillance cameras along all the on and off ramps of Interstate 80 and Highway 4 along the cities of El Cerrito, Hercules, Richmond, San Pablo, and Pinole.
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California Mayors Demand Surveillance Cams On Crime-Ridden Highways More

California Mayors Demand Surveillance Cams On Crime-Ridden Highways

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  • How about (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @02:40PM (#52202157)

    Withholding federal funding for "sanctuary cities"?

    • You're confusing these East Bay cities with San Francisco.

      • Re:How about (Score:4, Insightful)

        by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @02:47PM (#52202183) Journal

        You're confusing these East Bay cities with San Francisco.

        No, the confusion is between San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area. These cities are certainly in the SF Bay Area.

        • These cities are certainly in the SF Bay Area.

          Sure, but SF is where people seek sanctuary. Oakland is where from people seeking sanctuary are coming from.

          Going from SF to Oakland is like going from El Paso to Juarez.

          • Oakland is where from people seeking sanctuary are coming from.

            Hipsters are seeking sanctuary from San Francisco real estate prices by buying homes in Oakland.

        • No, the confusion is between San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area.

          That's like claiming that Silicon Valley and San Francisco are the same place despite being 50 miles apart. They're not. Same region, yes. But not the same place. Not every place in California is a sanctuary city.

          • That's like claiming that Silicon Valley and San Francisco are the same place despite being 50 miles apart. They're not. Same region, yes. But not the same place. Not every place in California is a sanctuary city.

            WTF has being a "sanctuary city" got to do with anything? There is no sanctuary for gang-related crime.

            Silicon Valley is definitely in the SF Bay Area also. A quick look at a map and you would see that Richmond, San Jose and many other cities have shorelines on the SF Bay.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by HornWumpus ( 783565 )

              The bay area as a whole is a little nuts.

              But SF is off the hook, batshit insane, loony left. The further you get away, the more sanity returns. (In general and Locally, LA has plenty of it's own insanity.)

              The computer revolution _could not_ have happened in SF proper.

            • WTF has being a "sanctuary city" got to do with anything?

              Take it up with the original poster — as I did.

              Silicon Valley is definitely in the SF Bay Area also.

              Right, but that wasn't my point. Whenever the news media or a movie has Silicon Valley as a focus, San Francisco is inevitably shown. If you watch "The Internship," San Francisco was a Google bike ride away from Silicon Valley. Most people outside of the SF Bay Area are surprised to discover that Silicon Valley and San Francisco are 50 miles apart. Born and raise in Silicon Valley, this has always been my pet peeve.

    • Look it put. All statistic point out that illegals have a lower crime rate than naturally born American. So what would really effectively lowering funding for sanctuary cities do ? If anything if illegals are replaced by naturally born American in those cities, then crime rate would rise. The sad truth is that if you want to lower crime rate, then you better look at program which will help reintegration of ex-con and programs which helps the local find better paid job above minimum wage.
      • ...and yet, the locals will never find a better paid job above minimum wage as long as our elites keep importing millions of illiterate third-world peasants. Let's help them get back home and then millions of low wage jobs will open up for our own people. We'd even be able to improve these jobs because the employers wouldn't be able to hold the workers' feet to the fire. They'd pay more and the working conditions would be better, and corporations would have to take this out of their already sky-high prof

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dywolf ( 2673597 )

          Immigrants, undocumented or otherwise, tend to be either very low skilled or very high skilled. Day laborers and janitors, and doctors and professors, etc.
          And because americans tend to be neither, but rather tend to be in the middle, neither very low skilled no highly skilled, because that's what our schools and economy excel at cranking out.

          so the graphs of the two workforces (if plotted as population vs labor skill level) are total opposites, and the result of their combination is that they don't take our

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Bull fucking shit. Illegals are 100% criminals by their very definition.

        • In Soviet America, everyone is a criminal!

        • You are intentionally misconstruing the argument or intentionally misstating the difference between the criminal those statistic tracks and illegally being in the US, whichever you should never have been modded insightful. They are illegal and criminal for immigration laws. But looking at violent and petty crime, theft, murder, rape, drug trafficking, prostitution and all that jazz which really count when speaking of a tract of land with too many shooting they have lower rate than the average American. You

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
            Are they more or less likely to commit crimes that matter than legal immigrants? If so, we should stop illegal immigration and vastly expand the legal routes.

  • How is this news for nerds stuff that matters? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28, 2016 @02:40PM (#52202165)

    I see no problem with surveillance cameras on public roads. There is no expectation of privacy there, and there's a legitimate reason for the cameras to be there. Lots of highways have cameras, if nothing else to monitor road conditions. This isn't news for nerds, stuff that matters. It's a non-issue.

    • Really, why is this on /. ? What's next, results of the pie eating contest?

      • Well now, Mr. 1,444,407, clearly you have been around a long time and know all about what matters at Slashdot.

        • Well now, Mr. 1,444,407, clearly you have been around a long time and know all about what matters at Slashdot.

          Not if he thinks the pie eating contest isn't "stuff that matters", he doesn't.

        • I realize I haven't been around here as long as many, but it seems to be quite a number of years now, although I can't seem to locate the exact date that I joined. I know 1,444,407 is not exactly a low user number.

          I've certainly been here long enough to know that in past years, stories for /. seemed in general more relevant. This is not intended to be my source for general news.

          • Looks like I joined in early 2009, something over 7 years ago, based on the date of my first comment posted.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by methylx ( 993380 )
          Yea, what he said.

    • Not in New Hampshire there aren't (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There were cameras installed in New Hampshire and the people became incensed when they learned about the actions of bureaucrats. We got new legislation passed which banned cameras. That is government ones. They've even been taken down now.

      If you don't want to live under an authoritarian hell hell hole dictatorship we have to stop putting up with this BS. If you think we can live without abusive police and violence against the people come to New Hampshire. Liberty-minded people are making a home here and we

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      I see no problem with surveillance cameras on public roads. There is no expectation of privacy there, and there's a legitimate reason for the cameras to be there. Lots of highways have cameras, if nothing else to monitor road conditions. This isn't news for nerds, stuff that matters. It's a non-issue.

      Oh, you see no issue? OK, let me explain how this is going to work. By claiming that current traffic cameras aren't "good enough" to catch criminals, they'll justify that "top-notch" next-gen camera tech while pinky swearing that they won't abuse it.

      Phase One will consist of cameras equipped with night vision, and powerful enough to capture you texting while driving to receive that ticket in the mail automagically. Phase Two upgrades will consist of radar/laser tech for "traffic integrity" to ticket anyo

      • Re:How is this news for nerds stuff that matters? (Score:4, Informative)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @05:32PM (#52202783)

        Phase 1 and Phase 2 sound wonderful, when can they install them?

        Phase 3 sounds like it's DoA. There's no marketing reason to know which road a driver of a certain road uses unless it's for generic city planning, in which case it's already done anyway. As for the rest of the important information, they have that already and can sell that whenever they want. Nothing scary from the cameras here.

        No on the flip side I live in a country where there are automated are everywhere in the city and highway complete with license scanners. They don't get us for texting (yet) but they do a wonderful job of finding stolen vehicles, registration checks, insurance checks, environmental checks, and they monitor traffic continuously with great fidelity too, i.e. if someone has a flat and pulls over on the side of the highway to change his tire they automatically shutdown or speed limit the right most lane. We also get up to the minute traffic reports and very accurate predictions of how long a delay is should one arise.

        The good outweighs your scary marketing scenario by a wide margin.

        • Your gov't is not my gov't (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Blythe Bowman ( 4372095 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @05:51PM (#52202887)
          Your country probaly dosen't have a vast gulag prison system, over 2 million people behind bars, or police that dress in heavy body armor, carry big and powerful guns, and burst in homes (no knock) and kill children because they raided the wrong house two doors down from the person growing pot or they were acting on an anonymous "tip". I don't trust the US gov't enough for me to believe they should have these kinds of toys.

          • Actually our prison system is in dire straights for all the right reasons [qz.com].

            But yes I do agree with you. Some power in the hands of fine enforcement agencies is good. Lots of power in the hands of martial law is not.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tsotha ( 720379 )

            The people behind bars in the US belong there. In California we ran out of jail space years ago, so someone who'd been drinking the Kool-aid had the idea we could free up a bunch of beds by letting out all the nonviolent criminals. When they actually went through the paperwork they couldn't find enough people to materially affect the shortage, which is why they're letting out violent offenders now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      The reason it is on, is all about extent. So some cameras at a few critical traffic locations versus entire stretches of road covered and the extension of that, all public roads covered with cameras and microphones. So from a tech standpoint, how do you manage and maintain that, installation, servicing and replacement. Now add in monitoring it all, so live monitoring from a safety standpoint or recording simply to arrest people after the fact or variant combination, the panopticon https://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]

  • Putting cameras on I-80 may deter shootings on the highway but I'm guessing the bullets will start pop-pop-popping up somewhere else.

    • Re:The tried and true "whack-a-mole" strategy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @03:16PM (#52202285)

      Putting cameras on I-80 may deter shootings on the highway but I'm guessing the bullets will start pop-pop-popping up somewhere else.

      Most crime is opportunistic, not planned. If you remove the opportunity, you prevent the crime. There is no "law of conservation of crime", so better deterrence does not cause a fixed amount of crime to shift to other areas. The opposite is true: Lower crime in one area allows resources to be refocused in other areas, and lower crime leads to a positive feedback loop of economic recovery, more jobs, and stronger communities, in both the immediate area, and in surrounding neighborhoods.

      • Somebody picking up a wallet they see on the street and keeping it would be a crime of opportunity. Shooting someone dead is not.

  • Finally! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Surveillance Cams On Crime-Ridden Highways

    That means they're going to do something about civil forfeiture, right?

  • Find the real reason for the shootings (Score:3)

    by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @03:31PM (#52202323)

    How about doing some real detective work and finding the real reason why people are doing the shootings? Putting up cameras will just making finding the people responsible easier after the fact. Sure the article says the shootings may be gang related but I find it may be hard to believe that the gangs are just going out to the highway and taking random pot shots. One would hope that after 28 shootings the police would be a lot more proactive but alas that seems to be too much to ask today.

    • How about doing some real detective work and finding the real reason why people are doing the shootings?

      I thought that's how Americans said hello?

  • She says that it's apparently gang initiation stuff (or perhaps that's what the media is telling her) but it doesn't sound particularly nice. A lot of "shoot the random person from the overpass, to prove you're gangster"
    Who knows what the truth is but they need to nail the people doing it.

  • It's not road rage (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's gangs. Surveillance is not the answer. Pot legalization will take *some* of the revenue from the gangs, but not all. Also, if alcohol prohibition is our guide, the gangs won't just leave or turn legit. They'll actually get worse as they compete for their slice of a smaller vice pie, and we can't legalize all vice such as human traffic and sexual abuse of minors.

    You see gang activity all over California. In my neck of the woods, there's a tag war of Nortenos vs. Surenos. I have taken to calling th

    • "we can't legalize all vice such as human traffic and sexual abuse of minors." oh, we COULD. It's just that even Libertarians aren't ready to go that far yet.

  • Gang Related, not random (Score:5, Interesting)

    by amxcoder ( 1466081 ) on Saturday May 28, 2016 @06:12PM (#52202939)
    This has been a more recent problem, and it IS gang related. Some relevant information about the problem... there are 2 feuding gangs, one from Richmond, and another from Vallejo that are having some kind of feud between each other (don't know which specific gangs). The corridor of the freeway and towns mentioned are for the most part, all the towns in the stretch between these two locations. El Cerrito is just West of Richmond, and if you travel east, there is Richmond, San Pablo, El Sobrante, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo, Crocket, and then the bridge with Vallejo on the other side. The majority of these shootings are happening mostly at night, not during normal driving hours and almost all of them have been in this specific corridor (with a couple outliers happening near Berkeley).

    These are NOT people on foot taking pot-shots at passing cars or anything of the like. These are mostly targeted, and are between multiple cars on the road, not on foot, so the perpetrators shoot and then just drive away and get off the freeway down the road. In some of these cases, one gang will in Richmond will spot a rival gang member on their turf, and chase/follow them, until the rival members gets on the freeway toward vallejo and the ensuing shooting occurs on the freeway. I think most of the shootings that I'm aware of, have happened on the East bound side, which indicates travel from Richmond toward Vallejo.

    I've also heard rumors that one of the reasons the shootings have moved to the freeways, and the 2 gangs are attacking there is because the freeway does not have any "Shot-Spotter" system installed, which some of these cities in that corridor of the freeway do. I don't know if this is accurate, but it does make some sense. So in other words, if one gang intends to attack another gang IN Richmond, the shot-spotter system would detect it and they have a more likely chance of getting caught. If they follow the person onto the freeway, then open fire on them, then the Shot-Spotter systems are useless. So this could already be a case of one "safety system" pushing the violence out of the area where it has naturally occurred in the past, to a new area that does not have the same "safety system". So there is the real possibility that putting some system in place on the freeway will just push it somewhere else, maybe a worse place (for those not involved).

  • I would say that these cameras do far less to prevent a crime before it occurs than they do to catch and convict the perp after the damage is done assuming that the video footage is clear enough that a jury of 12 morons can make it out.
    It's the same with far too many laws and illustrates the problem with politicians trying to do anything about crime. All they care about is being able to say that they did something as opposed to nothing therefore they should be reelected. There are already plenty of simple

  • Same in Chicago (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We have been having these shooting on our expressways in Chicago for the past 5 months. This is a trend. Gangs follow cars onto the highway, and shoot, and the getaway is easy vs. doing it on the side streets in the neighborhood.

  • Despite California having some of the most Draconian gun control law in the US, their murder rate is still higher than Western states with far fewer gun laws: OR, WA, UT, MT, WY. ND, SD, CO and TX and they are closely tied with AZ. So it is becoming clear with this move that they are want to disarm the citizens and promote the Bog-Brother State, so It isn't about guns, it is about the state versus liberty after all.
  • Hidden cams surely work out better than conspicuous cams. Making crime a worse and worse path for an individual is a great way to reduce crime in the long term. And we need those cams in the finest neighborhoods as well as in the ghetto areas. Those cams have two benefits. First they can lead to the arrest of the guilty . Next they can protect people from incorrect arrests. A good cam system can provide your location at a certain time and many times the accused is no where near the crime site.

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