Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Gears Ground

George Vonn King Jr.
Wat. Nineteen-year-old George Vonn King Jr. was Tased five times, sedated. City prosecutors determine he died of "natural causes."* If only there was some way to record interactions between police and citizens...

So, apparently in spite of whatever lip service they've offered up in the past SRB and Batts are fighting police cameras tooth and nail, arguing that the city council doesn't have the authority to force them on the police department. Admin's lawyer: "you can argue all you want." Meanwhile I got a long message from a purported cop about this--
"listen i know we have bad cops out there. I want them gone just as much as the next. i was born and raised in this city and a cop myself. cameras on cops will not fix the problem in this city. cameras are going to make the good cops like myself a robot for many reasons. just because a camera is on it will not change a cop who has a bad adjective. He will just find other ways to get the job done." 
Oh, okay, so retail stores, banks, etc. shouldn't be able to train cameras on the till even if $5.7 million goes missing, because the "bad" employees will just figure out another way to steal? If cameras are such an outrage, where was the mayor's office as we all became subject to license-plate scanning technology, when our tax money was frittered away on hundreds of (apparently worthless) surveillance cameras all over the city, and that time we all became test subjects for military drones? Also total bullshit: the claim that it'll cost $7 million to equip the city's 2000-something officers with cameras-- that's about 10 times more than the companies that make the cameras claim they cost, 10 times more than other jurisdictions claim to pay. And even if cameras do cost $7 million, so what? That's sofa-cushion change compared to the largesse this administration has ladled out to developers (eg. $393 million for Harbor Point*), a veritable Starbucks tip compared to the ridiculous overtime costs and other hinky business police stick us with.

In East Baltimore, a "torture house." The Sun has helpfully included a selection of Tweets if you want to share this information with your "social networks."

Ps. If you missed the 10+-something hours of Frank M. Conaway Jr. rambling on like a lunatic before he took them down,* a helpful citizen set up a mirror site.