Granted, that would have been government cameras, but still who doesn’t have a personal camera system now and it does seem to work/help. I fully expect cities to propose more cameras on the streets and freeways (sadly because of the crime) and the public will probably go for it since it’s gotten used to the idea.
I like Campbell police and their willingness to try to get these porch thieves. I think our police are in meetings mostly. Never see them.
You sure not here???
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Not sure if there is one around us. I think they go to bistros:laughing:
In most cases cameras are useless. Unless you like watching video of the person stealing the package. There must be a thousand examples of this on Youtube.
And, as so many camera advocates on the two Nextdoor forums I am on have found out, just because you have video of the perp in action and maybe even the license plate number of the car involved, there will be no apprehension, arrests, convictions or even return of your stolen property.
Hell, you’ll be luckier than most if you can even get a police response to your request for service. If it doesn’t bleed, they won’t come out.
Are police in Chula Vista are the same. I never see them, but I think that’s good. They all focus on the other side of town where there is a little more crime.
What? Did you manage to get a picture of the only Dunkin DOnuts in the Bay Area? Wowwwww.
(In Boston, there were so many Dunkin DOnuts, you couldn’t even say things like “drive down Somerville Avenue and take a right at the Dunkin Donuts” because there were two.)
We’ve had people caught and identified with them in our area. The latest picture, though, the guy is wearing a scarf around his face. Surprised he didn’t put a hat on too.
How about an exploding poop bag…Not enough to injure…Just enough explosive power to cover the perp in poop…
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And of course, we come back to the original security solution: Get a dog.
Happens all over. Public employees, including safety personnel, have pushed their compensation packages sufficiently above the averages of the areas they serve such that they’ve declared themselves our betters. They expect us to all bow down to them and take whatever they offer as the final word on all public matters.
How do I know this? I am one. 
A local firefighter recently got on our Nextdoor forum crying the blues about being underpaid and how all the firefighters are leaving because our bankrupt city doesn’t pay them as well as other Bay Area cities. When one of the participants looked up this particular firefighters total compensation package for last year on Transparent Calfornia and called him out on it because it was worth $245,000 last year, he claimed that Transparent California has erroneous information (they don’t. I have to provide this information to them every year for our agency). When I pointed out that he would be retiring at the young age of 55 with a package with a present value of over $1M all financed by the taxpayers, and that virtually no one in the private sector would have a similar retirement in terms of age or amount without them having self funded it he really went out on a limb. He retorted, “I hope you never call us for service”.
I’d print that exchange out and take it to the new City Manager to show that this man made a threat to witthold service to a citizen he didn’t like. But the firefighter’s union is so powerful, that I know that no remedial action would be taken. And, there would almost assuredly be retaliation against me if I pressed the matter.
Talk about an entitlement mentality.
I received a slew of “thanks” for the comment from other participants.
Firefighters and cops are completely unaware that it is a much broader segment of the population that are sick and tired of their self important attitudes and alligator tears about compensation than just the minority communities that are distrustful of them.
9/11 really accelerated this trend. I can’t tell you how many Memorial and Veteran’s Day events I’ve attended since then that have been hijacked by local police and firefighters. We really need to put this back in it’s proper place.
I have been known to post this wonderful video that sums up the whole situation in response to police and firefighter pay debates. It touches all the standard arguments and is actually hilarious if it weren’t only true.
I didn’t post it in this particular case because you have no anonymity on Nextdoor and I didn’t want my house fire bombed.
But, I’ll share it here. Just be aware that the language is NSFW or if you are easily offended.
I continue to respect the uniform but not everyone who wears it.
Also, I have numerous friends and family members who are/were firefighters and cops. I have to hold my tongue when this subject comes up or face loss of friendship or familial relations if I don’t.
And yes, I do worry about big brother. It gets worse all the time. And, as much as people like to wring their hands over whomever is the POTUS at any given moment, the real Big Brother threat is coming from local government. It’s just gotten out of control.
I was recently assessed a $1,000 fine because the City had “determined” I had a rental but hadn’t paid the rental tax. They “determined” this because my bill address for the City water service is another home I own and not the address for service.
It’s just a second home for me. It’s never been rented to anyone. Nor, will it be. It’s just part time personal use for me and my family.
I got them to walk the $1,000 “administrative fine” back, but now they insist that I must sign an affidavit that it isn’t a rental, provide a list of occupants and their relationship to me AND provide them with copies of my last three years of federal income tax returns.
Talk about denial of civil rights!
Even though I’m on a first name basis with several City Council members as well as the City Manager and several other employees at City Hall and am sure if I speak to any of them this will be dropped, I am going to speak with an attorney instead. The principle here is of great importance and it is absolutely essential to the well being of my other home that my privacy be respected. The City has proven on several occasions that they cannot do that.
Plus, I’m smelling very large, punitive damages for a Civil Rights violation. It happens to municipalities much more than people realize.
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In South Lake Tahoe the fire department sends you a bill if the come to your house…Not only are they overpaid but they charge per use…If you call for an ambulance they send a fire truck, ambulance a cop and a bill…Total bullshit
Firefighter unions long ago had the “must deploy when ambulance called for” mandate put into their contracts. They claimed it was needed for public safety because they have specialized equipment that ambulances do not and that they are trained in rescue operations whereas private ambulance services are not.
Here is a realitively well balanced perspective.
The real motivation was just more job security for government firefighters. Half the country still has volunteer fire departments and are hated by those who clamor to retain their status.
But, especially with firefighters, the public puts on rose colored glasses and goes along with whatever they’re told.
This is only going to get worse after the conflagerations here in NorCal and now, in SoCal this year. The hero worship will go through the roof and the firefighter cartel will milk it for all it’s worth.
For many wildfires they use prisoners to augment the firefighters. Are they eligible for hero worship too?
Damn 1%ers. They get everything. They even snatch the “hero” from the backs of prisoners. 
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I think cameras are very useful. Keep in mind that yes if you place them so far away or do not have the best resolution cameras to be able to see anything well whose fault is that? Recently, we had a story in San Ramon or Danville where punks were shooting flares at homes or probably X-mas decorations. Cameras in the neighborhoods caught enough info that they were caught within a day I believe. I rest my case.
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Shooting flares into homes is equivalent to bleeding. PD was willing to respond.
At work, we had a yard attendent get into a verbal altercation with an operator. A couple of weeks later, when that yard attendant went to our far lot to retrieve a bus for fueling, a bunch of hoodlums boarded the bus with him and beat the tar out of him with golf clubs saying, “You mess with her, you mess with us.” He was hurt bad enough to be in the hospital for a couple of days.
The whole incident was captured by the video recorders inside the bus. The police of course, wanted the video. But it never amounted to anything. All they could say was, “We don’t recognize these guys. What do you expect us to do?”
I can’t speak for businesses or public services like our BART but as private citizens we really do have to step it up and protect what we have from the criminal element because frankly the penalties these idiots get are so light. Why is car break-ins so high? Because the punishment is essentially nothing. It goes back to the watering down of our laws and enforcement. Perhaps it is related to jail overcrowding but that does not mean you give light sentences for the crimes committed. Tougher laws that serve as a deterrent is the way to go. Let’s bring back our poster boy (Singapore) once again to show us how it can work beautifully.
I placed a box with DVDs sold on Ebay on top of my mail box. My dogs were barking like crazy so I knew he was around the bend where I can’t see him, or, he had already passed. So, I check my mailbox, nothing. I then left the box, and as usual I waited for him to tell me the events of the day as he tells me so many things. I got to go pee, I enter my home, took me 3-5 minutes.
I go out then, and I don’t see the box anymore. I checked my mailbox, nothing, then, the video, memorized that face, the bike, the hat, but he never returned to this area. I could have called the USPS hotline but why bother? For $60?
Within a month, no kidding you, 2 squeegees have been taken right from the side of my garage, to do so, you need to walk into my property since I don’t have gates nor fences on the front of my house. A squeegee?
In the past, I’ve talked to police officers coming to the infamous house from hell. It was unbelievable to see the many cars for an event they knew was so common, a yelling, a slap on the hand, the screaming or the usual get the F out of here would command neighbors to call 911. The last time was a real domestic violence incident that prompt them to put the perpetrator to go to jail for quite some time. He returned to the hole again once, and twice after going to jail. So, one day, I asked for forgiveness to the cops and I told them that they looked like losers by sending, up to that minute, 6 police units. They looked at me as if I was saying something horrific. I then told them that if they didn’t believe me about the wasting of our taxpayers on that home from hell…I said…“watch, there’s going to be another unit coming by”…when the 7th unit showed up. 
One of the officers smiled, then, I recognized him, he had been to the scene one too many times, about twice a month. Then, they told me that what was holding them to help many people calling them was the paperwork. That’s when I told them right there, not before asking them for forgiveness, that they looked like losers by not recording something on the 911 screen that this property was a repeated offender and that they needed to send 1 unit, not 7! 
Regarding entitlements, you should guide your concerns towards the most inefficient political members of our country, the white house and congress. We have an idiot right now playing golf at our expense and playing it’s OK when you work, really work, but this time, too much is too much. And the turds in congress, all of them, commanding $100Ks in yearly and retirement benefits.
If you are an investor, and see the performance of the people above, I believe you would say that the return for your money is very poor. The intelectual capacity of people in charge of our government, at federal or state level, is very poor, and that is reflecting the mental capacity of we/our electors. Plain and simple.
But, have we had any smart people in government now, or ever?