"City’s police sharpen their watch on crime; New center links monitors, officers" by Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | March 3, 2010
As part of a new crime-fighting initiative unveiled yesterday, Boston police now have the ability to witness shootings, robberies, and even homicides on many city streets from computer screens at headquarters and then distribute crucial information about the suspects and the crimes to officers heading to the scene.
The program uses existing technology such as cameras focused on major city streets, the department’s gunshot detection system, and the 911 dispatch center to relay information about a crime almost instantaneously to investigators.
Related: ShotSpotter Spies
The $500,000 intelligence hub, known as the Real Time Crime Center, is the latest in the department’s efforts to combine shoe-leather police work with technological savvy to monitor and thwart criminals....
Remember when this was just about getting terrorists, America?
Boston is one of a handful of cities nationwide that have developed such a center, the first of which was launched in New York in 2005. Since then, police departments in Houston and Memphis have opened their own centers.
Boston’s fledgling operation is modest by comparison. The department can only afford to pay for five technicians, one of whom is a police officer. Three technicians monitor the center from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and they are relieved by a team of two civilians, who are supervised by a detective and work until 1 a.m. Before the center was created, police had the technology in place, but not the resources and staff to monitor the screens in such a coordinated way.
The New York Police Department has more than 40 detectives and crime analysts at its center, where a 500-square-foot screen displays key information. In Memphis’s 5,000-square-foot center there are 42 monitors linked to video cameras across the city. In Houston, 12 civilian analysts staff the computers 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide more extensive background information about suspects, victims, and neighborhoods to officers on the street.
The information that analysts provide not only helps investigators solve crimes, but can also prevent officers from getting hurt by giving them information not only on a suspect they are going to arrest, but on neighbors, said Christina McClure, a criminal intelligence analyst at the Houston center, which does not use cameras. Police will know before they knock on a door if the owner of the house or the neighbor next door is a violent criminal, she said.
“It’s so our officer doesn’t get ambushed,’’ McClure said.
Related: Drug War Making a Killing in Boston
Never mind the ambush of a private citizen who did nothing wrong.
Never heard back on it, either.
Boston’s Real Time Crime Center is an offshoot of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, known as the BRIC, which collects, analyzes, and disseminates crime data to officers. Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald, who oversees the BRIC, said he hopes the city will eventually receive enough funding to operate the new system all day and night.
Yeah, WHO CARES about HEALTH CARE or SCHOOLS?!!!
Yesterday, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who visited the center and was wedged between Davis and Fitzgerald, joked about its tiny size.
“Could we find a bigger room?’’ he asked.
Despite the limitations, police officials said they are already seeing results from the new system, which launched last month.
On Feb. 11, police arrested four people following a late afternoon shooting on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan. The group was retaliating against another that fired on them, according to police.
On the large screen yesterday, Officer Matthew Hogardt, one of the analysts, played video footage of the incident as he explained how the crime center helped solve the shooting.
When one group fired on the other, the city’s gun detection system, known as ShotSpotter, sounded an alarm, causing the technicians inside the center to train a camera on the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue and Morton Street. On the screen, the technicians not only saw the shooting, but one of the fleeing men turn back to the scene to retrieve something.
Seconds later, while the man was still at the scene, officers arrived in a cruiser. The technicians were able to let the officers know they should stop the man, who had picked up the cellphone and GPS device of the shooter.
In the past, police would not have been able to arrest the man on the street, Fitzgerald said.
“They would have had nothing to hold him on,’’ he said.
Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said the public should be concerned about the department’s ability to monitor so much of the city with cameras. There are 82 cameras located around the city, primarily around major thoroughfares.
“While all of us want to be safe, I think it’s important that the public ask some questions about the extent to which this kind of surveillance is becoming pervasive and whether there is any independent oversight to this extensive surveillance, which we know is prone to abuse,’’ Rose said.
She also questioned whether public funds should be paying for computers and analysts rather than more police officers.
I am SO GLAD it is YOUR TOWN not mine!!!!
Boston’s Real Time Crime Center is funded for the next two years, mostly through federal grants.
Yeah, through HOMELAND SECURITY because of that damn 9/11 lie!!!
And looks like WE ARE ALL PAYING, my dear fellow Americans!
“We can’t look to technology to replace officers on the street building relationships of trust with the community,’’ Rose said.
There is no more trust with the police -- if there ever was any.
Look, I'm not kicking them in the shins when involvement occurs; however, if I can go the other way and avoid them.
Police said the center will help officers on the street, not replace them. Analysts now provide extensive intelligence to detectives and officers before they even get to a crime scene, Davis said.
So what is next, Robocop?
“We can literally be working on homicide cases before the detectives show up at the scene,’’ he said. “It’s something that is at the cutting edge of police technology.’’
Now get down to the school house; we heard there was a shooting!
Nah, cops got better things to do:
"Police turn up heat on civilian flaggers; As dispute with state flares, tensions rise over who should monitor sites" by Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | April 22, 2010
Lynn Williams, a construction worker in a yellow vest, was standing in the middle of a South Boston intersection, holding a sign warning drivers to slow down, when police showed up and ordered her to stop, she said.
“They threatened to arrest me,’’ she said. “Wasn’t that nice of them?’’
Within moments, according to the state’s top highway official, a project supervisor had pulled Williams away from assisting traffic to “deescalate the situation.’’ Police deny that they threatened to arrest her, but by the next morning, the civilian flagger had been replaced by a uniformed officer.
The incident Tuesday was the latest flare-up in an increasingly tense dispute between the Boston Police Department and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation over the use of civilian flaggers at city construction sites overseen by the state.
State officials say they want to use civilian flaggers, allowed under a new state law, to save money; police in Boston and elsewhere, who can earn huge amounts of money working at construction sites, have argued that public safety is better served by having officers, rather than civilians, working the jobs.
The tension has been simmering since October 2008, when Massachusetts became one of the last states in the nation to allow civilian flaggers to work at construction sites. In the weeks after the law was passed, police in some communities taunted civilian flaggers at construction sites. In Woburn, for example, where the first civilian flagger was used, 50 off-duty officers shouted down a union-represented civilian flagger, calling him a “scab’’ and “pathetic.’’
Related: Flagging Down a Cop in Boston
Yeah, I supported them at the time.
Now, in Boston, where civilian flaggers are allowed only at state highway projects or on state roads, police and city officials are closely watching construction sites for potential violations of traffic safety agreements between the city and state over the use of flaggers.
What, no other crimes to solve or prevent?
Last month, a tussle erupted over who should monitor traffic at a major construction project on American Legion Highway.
Tell you what: I'll do it. What's the pay?
On-duty officers in cruisers are now watching for cement trucks coming in and out of the construction site, even though the state had initially decided to use a civilian flagger.
State Highway Division Administrator Luisa Paiewonsky said in an interview yesterday that the use of civilian flaggers is working and that she believes tensions with police will ease.
“We think over time [police] will adjust to it as a reform,’’ she said.....
Do YOU ever get such an UNDERSTANDING and GRACE PERIOD, citizen?
WTF?
If it is the LAW then.... !!!!
Oh, right, POLICE have NOTHING TO DO with the LAW!
It is the ENFORCEMENT part of the phrase that is key.
Paiewonsky said the use of civilian flaggers has saved the state about $10 million on road projects, in part because construction managers can decide how many flaggers to assign to a construction site and how long they will work.
When Boston police details are used, officers are paid for a minimum of four hours, even if not needed that entire time. But (clink) Boston police and city officials disagree that the state is saving money by using civilian flaggers. They also argue that civilians cannot ensure safe traffic flow or respond to criminal activity as a trained officer can....
I AGREE! That is WHY I WANT THEM OUT on the ROAD!
People will slow down for them, but not a guy in a vest!
Of course, that is ALSO LESS DOORS being KICKED DOWN!
The police cite as an example American Legion Highway, which has a 30-mile speed limit and 35,000 vehicles daily. The roadway has been the site of many fatal car accidents, and there are makeshift memorials to victims along its side, said Thomas Tinlin, the city’s transportation commissioner. “We’re not talking about a state job on a one-way street,’’ he said. “We’re talking about major thoroughfares, evacuation routes, that get thousands of cars a day.’’
Related: Tying Up the T
The dispute in South Boston stems from a meeting last Friday, when Boston police and city officials gathered with representatives of the state and a private contractor to discuss a project to resurface the road and build wheelchair ramps and sidewalks around the intersection of A and West Fourth streets. Police said state officials told them civilian flaggers would not be used on the project. But on Tuesday morning, a lieutenant coming off his shift saw Williams at the intersection, according to a police report. He alerted the district captain and within moments, two superintendents joined him at the scene, along with at least three union representatives. One union official took pictures of the scene.
If they ONLY RESPONDED to ACTUAL CRIMES like that!
Yeah, YOUR TAX DOLLARS at work!
Thomas Nee, who heads the patrol officers union and came to the intersection himself, said he was livid that the state directed a civilian to stand on a street that leads to a hospital, Boston Medical Center. “It’s ridiculous in a major artery like this,’’ he said. “This is an almost bald-faced, in-your-face move by the state.’’
Yeah, they are expert at that!
But (clink) Paiewonsky, whose department is overseeing the project, said the state had agreed to place officers at the two intersections flanking A and West 4th streets, but also reserved the right to use a flagger in the area between the officers and chose to do so....
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“Earlier this month, police wrapped up a 30-day sting involving plainclothes officers mimicking tourists and other pedestrians. Once they were panhandled, they essentially became victims guaranteed to show up for a trial”
Who knows, maybe you will see a teacher or two out there.
Also see:
The Night the Celtics Won the Championship
Well, that should make you feel better about this:
"Police patrols to increase in Hub" by John R. Ellement, Globe Staff | April 2, 2010
Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said yesterday that he is shifting more patrols into Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, seeking to stem the violence that has left four people dead and several wounded since Sunday.
Davis also said officers are once again teaming with probation officers to track — and take into custody, if warranted — offenders considered to be potential sources of disruption in neighborhoods. He said the four killings do not appear to be connected, although....
The commissioner said he remained encouraged about the levels of shootings and other violence in Boston overall. He also said the department’s response to gang violence over the last several years appears to be having some positive impact.
“It’s also important to note there has been a significant shift in the nature of homicides,’’ he said in a telephone interview. “A lot more of these have been drug-related rip-offs gone bad. We are not seeing the intensity of the gang activity that we saw in the last several years.’’
He added, “The issue around individuals who were involved in the drug business being targeted is rearing its ugly head again.’’
Sigh.
Yeah, it never goes away because government is the lead drug dea.... awww, never mind.
Davis said that despite the record rains in Boston, the relatively warmer weather may have been a factor, because more people were getting out of their homes and encountering their enemies on city streets....
In America?
You can have your stink city, Bostonians.
I'll take the smell of cow pooh over sewage any day!
Hey, it might not even be them:
"Police lend ear to worried tenants; Concerns on security officers can go to city" by Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | April 1, 2010
Boston police, facing concerns about the special security officers they license to patrol some of the city’s housing complexes, have been blanketing those developments with notices informing residents how to file complaints against the private officers.
The notices — which include two pages of rules the officers must follow — follow complaints from a lawyer representing residents who say they have been harassed, even assaulted, by private officers known as “special police officers.’’
Otherwise known as BLACKWATER (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).
Boston’s 268 special police officers are employed by private firms hired by the city to patrol housing developments. Like Boston police officers, they can carry guns, handcuffs, and batons, and have the authority to make arrests or search people they suspect of committing crimes....
You have BECOME IRAQ, Boston!!
Special officers patrol some of the tougher parts of the city, and management company officials say residents largely welcome the extra security. But (clink) other residents said they have run into trouble with some officers....
Then they must be a criminal, right?
Police would never do anything wrong or lie, not in AmeriKa.
Better hurry or you will miss the boat!
"Police boat drifts away unnoticed; Recovered craft suffers $75,000 in damage" by Maria Cramer, Globe Staff | April 23, 2010
The Boston Police Department’s Intercept fastboat is a sleek, 27-foot-long craft outfitted with twin 300-horsepower engines and designed to outperform much bigger vessels.
But (clink) it was not exactly slicing through the water when city officers found it drifting underneath the Summer Street bridge last month, clanging against the supports, according to a police report. The $250,000 boat sustained $75,000 worth of damage....
Police say the boat came loose from its mooring on March 14, a day of heavy wind and rainstorm, and then drifted into the Fort Point Channel because the officers assigned to the unit did not see it float away....
But (clink) the incident comes as union officials are complaining there are not enough supervisors for the harbor patrol, an elite division responsible for watching over the waters of the Boston Harbor.
What, with terrorists slipping in on LNG tankers?
Union leaders in the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation — which represents the city’s sergeants, lieutenants, and captains — have made direct appeals to Commissioner Edward F. Davis urging him to place more supervisors during the late shift for the harbor unit and the bomb squad. The union has filed a complaint with the state Division of Labor Relations decrying the lack of supervisors.
I really do not want to hear their complaints.
Elaine Driscoll, a spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, said there is no plan to place a supervisor on the last half shift, which goes from midnight to 7:45 a.m., even though there are sergeants overseeing officers during the other two shifts. “Currently at night we have a captain who is in charge of overseeing the city,’’ Driscoll said. “We would consider that captain as the supervisor for that unit.’’
Driscoll said she did not know why no one was watching the boat the night it was damaged....
Is this really lead Metro material?
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