Liability First?

Cynically labeled, ”The Late-Night Safety Plan,” Minneapolis residents were recently treated to a talking head on TV announcing:

“You may not always see them, but Minneapolis Police want you to know they’re ‘closely watching’ to keep things safe.”

We are then assured that “dozens of uniformed officers are monitoring surveillance cameras”

Even in the unlikely event that is all true, one might wonder why those same uniformed officers, instead of sitting on their fannies in front of monitors on the fifth floor of the HQ building, are not out on aggressive, active patrol, on-foot or in beat-cars, personally interacting with citizens, observing in person, and answering calls- the things we pay police to do!

“Watching” serious crime remotely is apparently now preferred to having an actual uniformed police presence.

There is safety in doing nothing, because “nothing” can always be done perfectly, a lesson obviously not lost on modern police administrators.

Unhappily, the presence of CCTV cameras does not prevent crime.  Never has.  CCTV cameras (“monitored” or not) protect no one!

But, the ubiquitous presence of CCTV cameras does persuade some (among the naive) that “we’re ‘doing something’ about violent crime,” even when that “something” is little more than hollow, “feel-good” fantasy.

I know a brilliant, highly-qualified SWAT officer who recently put-in an application to his agency for the position of Firearms Instructor

He need not have applied!

The job went instead to an incompetent clown who couldn’t fight his way out of a Chinese whorehouse!

The rationale subsequently articulated by the Chief is that he “didn’t want ‘some gun-nut’ training his officers”.

The foregoing is a great example of “liability-first” thinking!

/John