Fighting Cameras in Vancouver Already

I'm here not more than 3months and already I've jumped into the CCTV debate. It's funny, I had no intention of getting involved, but the cover story of the Province was so offensive, I just had to write something.

The story is this, murderous cowards shoot drug dealing murderer in font of a prestigious high-end restaurant downtown. Public is freaked out, mayor says that we need more cameras as a result. However, the cops are already reveiwing footage for 30 other cameras that were in use on the scene as well as numerous eye-witnesses. This may sound a little familiar to the Toronto folk readin this.

Here's the Original article in the Province.

And here's my letter to the editor response:

I am positively baffled by the Mayor's insistence that increased CCTV cameras are the wisest response to the shooting outside Gotham steakhouse. As if the 30 cameras already being sourced by police weren't enough, Sullivan seems bent on wasting more money on devices that clearly will not make the streets any safer.

We have mountains of data from countries around the world proving that these contraptions do nothing but cost millions of dollars and have little or no effect on crime.

We also have a long list of eye-witnesses to the event, and that tells us one very important thing: these criminals don't care about being seen. These acts were brazen and violent and watching it all on TV will not prevent this from happening again.

Ms Fry at least has it half right. We need better citizen interaction with police, better lighting and a crack down on guns and drugs running across our borders. These are methods actually known to work in the prevention of crime.

I don't know if it'll get published, but if it does, I'll post a link here.

Update: 2008.02.07 08:51:00 PST

While I'd given up hope that the letter would be published, it turns out that they did in fact print the letter -- if only a few days late. My parents found it and my grandmother sent me the link, so here you go if you're interested.