Karl Klockars

I’ve had some fun in the past discussing random shit I’d do if I were elected Alderman.  It comes up every now and then, and for the most part it’s almost entirely tongue-in-cheek.  Except for the giving away a third of my salary part.  I’d do that still.  All the same, I’m still no political mastermind, but I think I’ve hit upon something that would do a little bit of good in this mixed up, crazy town.

You know those cameras on phone poles all over town?  The blinking blue lights indicating “hey, the cops are watching over here” kind of cameras?  The cameras that they put up at intersections that don’t even seem like they’re that terrible?  If you live near one, you know what I’m talking about.  Just like Starbucks in the ‘hood can indicate that a neighborhood might be on the way up, I imagine that residents of a barely-sketchy area would see those getting installed and start looking the other way at things like graffiti and minor battery.  As in: “Hey, there’s a camera there.  They’ve got it taken care of.  This place is going to hell anyways.  Why else would they put a camera there?”  Anyways.

Those cameras were looked into by one Darlene Hill from Fox News Chicago.  I was listening to a Local Talk Radio Program (ahem) this morning where she was discussing how on the day of the beating attack at Fenger High School, the camera was overhead and presumably watching what was going on.  It wasn’t.

She checked out the camera and what it was recording that afternoon (Edit: this didn’t seem to make it into the story below) – and strangely enough, she said that it seems that the camera was working before the fight, and after the fight…but not during the fight where people are wondering if police were hanging out watching the whole thing happen and not intervening.  Curiouser and curiouser, eh?

I don’t know what really happened and I’m not going to make any accusations of Nixonian tape-erasing.  I’ll let Darlene make her case on Fox with her story here (and since I can’t find a link for the story, I can only assume it’ll run tonight after a charming introduction by David “No, I’m still not Mark Suppelsa” Navarro) and whether or not the tape is missing or the camera was broken or if it was stolen by leprechauns, it doesn’t matter.  No info is no info.

But if I may, were I reserved a seat on the City Council and had a thing or two to say about a thing or two, I’d try to do something about that, no matter what way this story shakes out.  I’m not sure if any of our vaunted Alderpeople have ever heard of something called “streaming video on the internet,” but we should introduce it to them.

Here’s my thought:  Put every police camera online.

Considering I can download a free application to my iPod Touch that lets me access my home webcam and keep an eye on my cat from hundreds of miles away, I’d imagine we could make this happen for oh, say, only a few billion dollars of taxpayer money.  Maybe less if we just let me do it as opposed to someone Alderperson’s nephew who’s good at the YouTubes.  Hell, let Adrian Holovaty loose on it and see what happens.

Following the “I can get everything on my Iphone” line of thought, I can also go on the web and listen to police scanner audio.  I can download other applications that show me where that info is coming from.  Apparently, all the video from the cameras are beamed or cabled directly into the office of emergency management, and the Chicago Magazine piece “Can Cameras Replace Cops” show exactly what’s going on behind the doors. Don’t you want to make that live stream a widget on your website or make it a screensaver or something?  Me too.

Big Brother stuff, right?  Well, as long as we’re paying for them and if they’re legal and only observing people in public, we should be able to check out what they’re doing with them, right?  I don’t like the idea of being on any number of city cameras at any given time, but I feel better knowing that any jerk with internet access can go online and check them out to make sure they’re not looking through my (or anyone elses) windows or watching me pick my nose.

And maybe we’d even have some citizen watchdogs keeping an eye on the streets as well, making sure that cameras are working when teenage kids are getting the shit kicked out of them until they die.  If there’s a 16 year old keeping an eye on his own neighborhood, maybe watching Chicago Cop TV would get a few more eyes on what’s really going on in town.

But I’m no alderman, so what do I know?  If I was alderman I’d probably also vote to get more cops on the streets, but that’s obviously not a popular idea either.