Edina Minnesota latest suburb to roll out homeowner surveillance camera program
startribune.com
startribune.com
I don’t agree with the program, but since I have some context around it, I thought I’d add to the conversation.
[0]: https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/12/11/edina-pd-offers-5k...
The suburbs are not nearly as safe as they were. My county has reported an explosion in carjackings and is considering boosting the police budget, and has referred to it as crime spillover.
I don't think the police started requesting camera footage of crimes from private citizens recently. It's just that they turned to businesses with security cameras.
I think realistically many people who own property cooperate with the police out of a definite sense of self-interest with no coercion required.
Police build little databases of where cameras are located and will use them to build timelines, etc. I served in a jury where the police were able to identify a hit and run driver who killed a teenager by knitting together surveillance footage from a bunch of cameras and establishing what cars were in an area in a given 5-minute window.
So, while at first glance at a headline, this might seem problematic, after reading the details, I'd probably be willing to participate. This can't really be abused to create any George Floyd-type situations.
They are organized and setup drop off points to box the cars in. The 'passanger' then holds them at gun point and another person gets in the driver seat.
Stolen phones and credit cards are also being used for this.
Its out of control. Multiple Amber alerts issued with infants or toddlers in the back seat from separate car jackings are increasingly common. A few days ago another happened. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/01/07/1yearold-missing-in...
This sounds like a typical made-up crime panic narrative, honestly. The linked story being about a car left running with an infant in it being stolen doesn't help. Terrible, but not at all some boxed-in high octane car theft.
Sibling posts chimed in about actually living there and this not being a thing. I don't live there, so can only search the news, but any stories about car thefts I'm seeing include warnings from the police for people to stop leaving their cars heating up with the keys in them.
We should endeavor to not buy into moral panics but act on data. We've seen from history that good reactions basically never come from decisive responses to crime waves that are actually constructed narratives from a data point or two.
Taxi drivers make easy crime targets for a number of reasons. They carry cash, they can be lured to virtually any remote (or easy to escape) location, they are working alone, they are working late at night.
Between 1992 and 1997, at least 50 cab drivers were murdered each year while at work. There may or may not be a recent surge in a specific location, but it has been a dangerous profession for a long time.
I can accept professional drivers are at much greater risk compared to the average daily driver, but do rideshare drivers actually know each other? This sounds very much like a 2020s Polly Klaas situation where one or two spectacular stories actually happen and the legislature starts responding and we end up with decades of three-strikes law doing thousands of times as much harm as ever happened from girls being kidnapped out of their bedrooms.
I also know 5 other people who have had their cars stolen (while they weren't in them). This includes 2 direct family members.
If you're a taxi driver, and all your friends are taxi drivers, I can easily imagine knowing 5x more.
This is not as many newcomers like to say "just life in the city", it is a big change from the 2010s.
Many people are getting cameras at their houses because it makes insurance payouts easier when something goes wrong. Otherwise you end up on the legal treadmill to get back to where you were.
Here's my anecdata: neighbor from my block got his car stolen, joy ride until suspension broke, thieves totaled the inside by cooking drugs inside it. Neighbor gets 8k for his car from insurance (Honda CRV 2010sish). Now has to deal with current market on cars, ends up going new getting Mazda CX off a boat because no cars on the lot. These guys are a professor and nurse, so this put a good dent in their income.
One other fun data point, is now carjackings are turning into shootings as people in the city don't expect police to do anything so there is an uptick in concealed carry for ride share drivers and delivery people.
The box in tactic has only been seen in a couple instances here in Philadelphia. The case I saw (in the neighborhood next to mine) they rear ended the guy, and when they got out to talk/exchange info passenger popped out and pulled a gun on the driver. The driver was armed, as they got into his car he shot the dude driving and then shot the other car's driver. Total mayhem. Cops thought he was the carjacker until witnesses told the story and showed camera evidence.
I'm not advocating for any particular solution or outcome, but that is the weather pattern in Philadelphia.
Traditional cabs would just never book calls or avoid perceived dangerous locations.
That's WILD.
I live here, it's happening in broad daylight, and becoming more violent.
Last week we had an amber alert because someone stole a car with a 1 year old in it.
This is the map he made of all of them (Reported ones): https://maps.co/map/619333f95e2d8772482744czk0b21d4?fbclid=I...
The numbers he broke down like this:
This doesn’t include car thefts, which there have been an additional 3387. Between car thefts and carjackings (robbery with car theft), there have been a total of 3879 cars taken, almost 1% of the population of Minneapolis have had their car taken in 2021, and 4035 car thefts/carjackings in 2020.
As of 2019 the population of Minneapolis was 420,324. So 1% of that is ~4,200.
Now not all 420k residents own a car, so considering the % of car owners is a smaller number the percentage is probably higher.
Still crazy to me.
Yes. Letting your car warm up or idling unattended with the keys inside even if you lock the doors is specifically illegal in Minneapolis. It was made illegal specifically to curb car theft opportunities.
2. There is an obvious difference between a law telling you not to leave your keys in an unlocked car and a law telling you how to dress.
Lots of cars let you take out the keys when the ignition is in "armed" state for this reason exactly. No need to leave the keys in the ignition while you aren't there.
https://www.startribune.com/a-breakdown-of-2021-carjackings-...
https://alphanews.org/minneapolis-city-council-now-wants-mor...
Uber/Lyft drivers are specifically targeted because they can be easily lured to a semi-remote location by the apps. But multiple criminals using that tactic doesn’t make it “organized crime.” It would make sense that an app driver knows other drivers who have been carjacked, but this M.O. isn’t exclusive to Minneapolis.
Crime is still really low here. I live at a dodgy intersection with major bus lines that brings a lot of characters—good and ‘bad’—around. I don’t worry about walking around even at night. I don’t worry about driving anywhere in this city, even in the areas where carjackings have been “up” (which I travel through frequently in order to reach the now infamous Lake Street Target).
Anyway, fear-mongering comments or anecdotes from people who visit here don’t really express the lived experience of people living in Minneapolis. :)
Your personal experience may be less relevant than actual incidents in which people were shot.
Rhetoric aside, there are empirical questions that can be answered.
We should also remember that people died in CHAZ and its immediate surrounding areas. For example Travis Berge, who was a well-known repeat offender featured in the documentary “Seattle is Dying” (https://komonews.com/news/local/komo-news-special-seattle-is...), killed his girlfriend there (https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/09/17/blm-chaz-proteste...). The father of another man who was shot and killed there is now suing the city for negligently abandoning that area (https://www.foxnews.com/us/seattle-lawsuit-chop-chaz-zone-sh...).
Not to mention, CHAZ set the tone for how the city has been governed and its politics thereafter. In 2020 there were near-daily blockades of roads and tunnels, none of which were legal, and yet there was little consequence for any of the rioting. For example, one article noted that out of 261 rioters, only 8 faced charges, and exactly zero those faced any real consequence subsequently (https://komonews.com/news/local/city-attorney-charges-brough...). Meanwhile the city police was forced to build a concrete barricade around their main police station because of the lawlessness and city leadership forcing them to not take necessary actions. It got to the point where BLM protesters were setting white people’s houses on fire when they were sleeping in it (https://thepostmillennial.com/seattle-blm-activist-arrested-...), and staged protests outside white neighbors’ homes demanding they leave the neighborhood (https://nypost.com/2020/08/14/seattle-blm-protesters-demand-...). All this, became normalized and accepted by city government, in part because of CHAZ.
Fast forward to the present day and we see how much worse things have become. Hundreds of police officers have quit because of defunding and bad policy. Most will never come back no matter what bonuses are paid. The city has roughly half the number of police officers the average city would have per capita. Crime is everywhere. Businesses are shutting down due to it - look at the International District for a taste, where ironically minority business owners are the ones suffering. Trash is everywhere. RV ranchers are everywhere. Tents can be found in numerous parks and green spaces, leaving behind trash and needles. Property crime, like bike thefts, car breakins, car thefts, burglaries, and so on are common to the point no one bothers to even report them, since there’s no one to investigate and insurance requires a deductible anyhow.
You might call it a ridiculous juxtaposition. But CHAZ was exactly the harbinger and enabler that those complaining about it thought it would be. Seattle was a very safe and very clean city less than 10 years ago. I don’t recognize the city as it is today.
For the same reason no single city, county, or state can offer taxpayer funded healthcare, they also cannot offer taxpayer funded mental healthcare and/or universal basic income (or whatever other welfare scheme), and still be part of a country that has freedom of movement.
The only reason the countries that do offer these things can continue to is because they have an immigration border with which they can limit the number of benefit recipients.
With regard to homelessness, the solution is to build socialized housing with integrated health services. This will never happen at the federal level until some states (or counties, or cities) take the lead. In line with how a great many people believe federal politics should be.
Have you read this? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903-open-borders
I want everyone in the world to have everything they want, but that is not compatible with the constraints of nature.
I am also aware that I and almost everyone else in the developed world consume far more than our "fair" share of the world's resources.
I have not read that book, but the caveat that throws cold water on egalitarian solutions is that we all want to maintain our disproportionately high standard of living while also increasing the amount of resources others receive, which is not going to happen without redistribution.
Personal responsibility is a thing still, and people can live anywhere in America instead of trying to do so in an expensive location. And yes I expect not to have to look at open drug dens or bike chops shops, not experience property crime, not have parking spaces occupied by trashy RVs, and not see taxpayer funded amenities like parks taken over.
It has nothing to do with appreciating property prices and nothing to do with right wing politics. That’s just your inaccurate editorialization. Most people have a common sense expectation that a city be clean, lawful, and operated for the benefits of its legitimate tax paying residents, not drug addicted vagrants or irresponsible nomads.
You have no solutions to the problem. Your only recourse is to push the problem somewhere else. Utterly pathetic. No vision whatsoever.
My “recourse”, which is to not let the homeless steal from legitimate residents, is the only reasonable solution. I certainly have no sympathy for the large number of drug addicted homeless taking advantage of the naivety of Seattle’s policies. But even for the rest - people need to figure out their own lives like the rest of us. No one is entitled to live in Seattle or New York City or Hawaii or other high demand, desirable, expensive location. Deterring the problem via enforcement and legal consequences doesn’t shift the problem - it addresses it by forcing people to be responsible, as long as other locations don’t try to accommodate them in the same broken ways.
You look at this problem in your community and your solution is to ignorantly push for it to be someone else's problem. I repeat, utterly pathetic. You are not a serious person.
Nothing like growing up in 80s NYC, but property crime in my city is way up, and police either aren’t taking reports or people don’t bother. The little league I’m on the board had the wall of a storage shed cut open and turf equipment stolen. The police took a report and the video and filed it away.
Shady people know what the police will arrest for, and what the DA will prosecute; they operate in the fringes. Basically if it’s a burglary at a house or assault the police respond and prosecute. Other thefts don’t even warrant a report unless there is an insurance angle. In general, the stupid crime done by drug addicts is basically not on the radar.
10 years ago, guys robbing sheds and plundering the little league would have prompted a mini-task force response. Today, the paperwork to book the guy would last longer that his time in custody.
However, I still have many friends in Minneapolis and without exception they are all very negative on the overall direction of the city. It's been particularity intersting to watch friends of mine in that area who I considered pretty far left start spouting more and more "conservative" talking points after the riots and as they view their quality of life deteriorating.
So I am curious about the source of multiple Amber alerts
So it's not just ride share services...
The first few victims I get. But after it becomes an identified pattern and makes the news people are gonna be on somewhat of a lookout or at least have it in the back of their mind that it's possible and the odds of your victim seeing the trap before you've got it complete go way up.
Sure you can try and profile people and avoid the car with five dudes in it and go for the middle aged lady in the car with a real estate agency sticker on the door but even then you can only point a gun at so many people before someone's knee-jerk reaction is to either hit the skinny pedal and GTFO or whip out their own piece. This seems like the kind of crime you can only commit 5-10x before you get unlucky and it goes off the rails.
And I know this next bit is going to come off as defensive - but I think it provides some context. I’m native to the upper Midwest, but I’ve spent a lot of time living in other large cities around the country. Take a look at the FBI violent crime data below.
Minnesota is a very low crime state and is coming off historically low crime. The current uptick in violent crime is real, but still doesn’t come close to the 90’s and lags significantly behind US average.
All that said, talking with people - including family - in neighboring communities and across the border in Wisconsin, you’d think Minneapolis is a burning, crime ridden hellhole where you can’t even walk down the street safely. There’s clearly some kind of political hay being made by that narrative.
https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/cri...
I won't pretend to state what happens to a stolen car. I have nothing but speculation and the obviously known facts. I can guess that given the targets are newer models of cars with at least one form or another of lowjack style tech. This does assume the crime is not spontaneously carried out, generally.
What happens after the 'more risk prone' portion is some level of organized crime and people using 'minors' to help deliver on this is my understanding.
Assuming police in the 1840s couldn't find citizens with cameras watching the street, how long is your "always"?
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_the_United_... )
Given that link, I would be very surprised if the Minnesota Police heard of Leo Theremin connecting a camera to a TV in the Kremlin in 1927 and immediately organised a map of citizens with cameras they could "ask if they have footage and are willing to share it"; the link says CCTV was a military thing until 1950, was expensive and uncommon until the 1960s because it needed someone always watching the feed, so ther ewouldn't have been any recordings for the police to view for over 40 years. Then "it wasn’t until the late 1990s that it started appearing in mainstream camera products like security cameras for the average business or home."
I'm guessing the time the police would routinely ask if anyone had footage of the crimes would be sometime after that, after CCTV recordings became popular enough in businesses that there was a good chance of a camera seeing a crime in enough cases to make it worth organising. Maybe mid to late 1990s for businesses? Then, individuals with things like Nest Doorbells ("homeowner surveillance camera program") wouldn't be a thing until maybe 2010s?
Which makes me think it's an odd thing to say the police "always did this".
That's fair. My statement of 'always' referred to what's typical and standard prior to the change. I.e., what is the actual net change as a result of this program?
So far as I can tell, nothing really. Other than citizens voluntarily deciding to fill out a spreadsheet vs police needing to drive around and do it.
This includes dummy cameras (in Germany).
I had a neighbor that was allegedly pointing cameras at his neighbor because he didn't want a black woman in the neighborhood. He was also an officer of the HOA. He was trying to intimidate her with cameras and staring at her all day. She sued and won. The judge ordered him to remove the cameras. I got out of that HOA in a hurry. They've since doubled the fees to compensate for the law suit, so they should have it paid off in 25-30 years.
I'm glad a warrant-like system is the plan. Technology opens the door to many dystopias I hope we avoid.
That's the part I was referring to. Anyone can provide footage from their cameras if they want.
In the west we see communities opting in to self surveillance 100% of the time, in China it can be literally having your door welded shut so you stay at home.
It all stems from the desire to control other people’s behavior to varying degrees. This desire is probably tied to a survival trait, but more often it is to satisfy something else.
Having a camera on your house, pointed into the street, is the opposite of self-surveillance. It's a way to surveil people in a public thoroughfare. Some of those people happen to be thieves who steal things from homes and cars, and if they get caught by video surveillance, that's great.
What exactly do the neighborhood residents lose by participating in this surveillance? It's only an upside for them -- they might be able to catch the thieves, with no loss of privacy for themselves.
I think it's also worth considering what can happen if there aren't cameras - eye witnesses suck. What if someone (or more than one person) claims to have seen you walking by a house that got robbed, and there's no video to prove your innocence? If people are hyper-aware that crime is happening they're going to be paying extra attention, while probably still doing a very bad job of determining what's actually going on.
a) not much to lose from secret information being divulged
b) not much secret information in the first place
It is really only a tiny minority that actually practically need privacy rights: prominent people, public figures, the wealthy, highly attractive people, alternative lifestyles, political or labor organizers, those speaking truth to power, et c.
We are a very small segment of the population by real numbers. Most people dgaf about privacy because they don't have to, so they never will.
Just about everyone needs privacy rights and most care about those rights for themselves. Unfortunately many are very willing to sacrifice other people's rights if they are told it will make them safer or protect the children, etc. (If someone does claim they don't care about privacy since 'they have nothing to hide', ask them for their medical records and tax returns - all of a sudden they do care.)
I don't think that's true in practice, no. Most people take the "I have nothing to hide" approach, and, sadly, the lives of most people are so uneventful that that's actually true.
That's probably true. The issue is that people with something to hide, need the other people to hide their mundane stuff so that the people with things to hide, don't stand out.