Originally published June 5 2005
Chicago PD turns to surveillance cameras as crime-fighting tool
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In 2003, Chicago was the homicide capital of the U.S., with 589 homicides. Now, Chicago has evolved with Operation Disruption, a pilot network of 30 cameras used to keep watch over the West Side. Images from these cameras have been used in over 200 investigations. The cameras are part of several improvements in criminal investigation for the city. Chicago also began using a massive data network, called CLEAR (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting), which contains all sorts of information from mug shots to chains of evidence. The computer system even tracks patterns of crime, predicts likely patterns of criminal behavior and allows chiefs to know where to hang cameras and send troops. Chicago's crime rate is now the lowest it has been since the mid-'60s. Police forces around the country are looking to Chicago for inspiration on new crime-control tactics. Roughly 300 local law enforcement agencies in 35 Illinois counties are using CLEAR, along with agents from the FBI, Secret Service, and the ATF. The plan is to expand the system even further. Opponents of the system, such as some community leaders, worry the police will turn Chicago into a surveillance state, and people will feel uncomfortable on the streets whether they are going to commit a crime or not. The other issue for critics is the tendency for surveillance to fall on minorities. Black men are twice as likely as white men to be watched for no apparent reason, a Hull University study found. Other community leaders, however, think the system is a great idea considering the state of Chicago's streets. Chicago's network of cameras will soon also be able to sense gunfire, and zoom in on trouble in response to 911 calls.
Three miles away, in a bunkerlike, red granite building near Greektown, Ron Huberman watches the young man on a PC screen.
The corner of Chicago and Homan used to be a haven for dealers slinging heroin and rock cocaine, the heart of a gangbanger free-fire zone.
"He's involved," Huberman says, staring hard at the screen.
No cop, even undercover, could ever get this close for this long.
But the cameras - housed in checkerboard-patterned, 2-foot-tall boxes the police here call pods - can zoom in so tight I can see the wisps of a mustache.
A pilot network of 30 cameras keeps watch over the West Side, capturing images that have been used in more than 200 investigations.
It's the first step on the way to a 2,250-camera system.
A massive set of databases now collects and collates the minutiae of law enforcement - everything from mug shots to chains of evidence.
Installed in patrol cars, it turns every PC in every station house into a node on a crime-fighting network.
Whether it means the end of crime or the beginning of the surveillance state - or both - Chicago is building the future of law enforcement.
Officer Dave Dombkowski spent 13 years on the streets of Chicago before he went to work for Huberman.
When Dombkowski was a patrol officer, he would trick people into the truth, telling them that the computer in his car was actually a new-jack polygraph, a "lie box" that could sort out fact from bullshit.
A 25-year veteran - old-school enough to call police "coppers" - Keating heads up the department's Targeted Response Unit, a squad of 240 of Chicago's most amped-up officers assigned to the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the city.
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