It not "definitely" but rather "definitely possible" that cameras could be used for safety, or that the police could work for the citizenry. But they don't. They're inclined not to share info, including that they're the police when ostensibly they're trying to help you by calling you to tell you that they found your stolen car. So instead what happens is you never get the call (and there's no real proof they called), and the tow company with the City contract gets paid because now you have to go pick it up at the impound lot.

But I have my neighbors to thank for really showing me where their priorities lie: the plague of rabbits which was ignored for three months until it was so bad that they collected over 30 rabbits, the person who threw burnt moulding from inside his house over the fence into my yard before he finally set the house on fire for real but the police didn't want to see the moulding or take a police report and wanted me to go talk to them. Just a couple of highlights.

It's one more anecdote to the anecdata of police being generally useless.