Do police ignore your video?

cam235

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I'll report back if anything comes of it. On the topic of paper plates and car breakins in CA, here's a fun article: SF neighborhood, police powerless against car break-ins
Supposedly, in 2019 a new law takes effect in CA (finally!) that all cars need to have temporary tags or real plates, not the blank tags so common now. I wonder if that will do anything. Likely they'll just print up fake temporary tags, or steal someone else's I guess. But if the police are actually watching the suspect beforehand, as in the article above, they could run the plate right away and maybe find probable cause.
 

Profits

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About a year ago, I attempted to contact the local Oakland Police. I had a dashcam video of a late model BMW X6 flying down the freeway missing a front wheel, with sparks shooting out of the wheel well from the rotor dragging on the ground. The entire left fender was peeled back. It just kind of rubbed me as being one of those "suspicious" things that would probably be interesting to the police. Well, I searched high and low for a place to contact them, finally resorting to just calling on the phone. To my surprise, they have no Facebook wall that the public can post to. They have no email address to email a link to Youtube. They have quite literally no way for me to get a video to them. I guess it shouldn't have been surprising to me that she requested I "bring the file to them". In the year 2017. All the resources listed above are literally free, and provide limitless access to precious evidence that the city of Oakland appears to just want to ignore.

But as someone above already mentioned, it seems they live to respond to crimes "in progress". But that also scares the crap out of me because if I ever had to report someone breaking into my house, their response would likely be "shoot first, ask questions later" and being the home owner, I might be one of the people they first come across. I used to live in a condo with my neighbor being the San Francisco police chief, and I used to watch the cameras pretty regularly. One time I went and knocked on his door to mention a guy who appeared to match the description of someone who had stolen one of our indoor cameras loitering outside the building, and attempting to see inside. The very first thing he did was grab his .38 and sprint out the door and down the stairs. After that incident, and witnessing his response, I felt like I needed to re-assess how I report crimes... because it can very literally get an innocent person killed.

Anyway, just food for thought.
 

RJF

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About a year ago, I attempted to contact the local Oakland Police. I had a dashcam video of a late model BMW X6 flying down the freeway missing a front wheel, with sparks shooting out of the wheel well from the rotor dragging on the ground. The entire left fender was peeled back. It just kind of rubbed me as being one of those "suspicious" things that would probably be interesting to the police. Well, I searched high and low for a place to contact them, finally resorting to just calling on the phone. To my surprise, they have no Facebook wall that the public can post to. They have no email address to email a link to Youtube. They have quite literally no way for me to get a video to them. I guess it shouldn't have been surprising to me that she requested I "bring the file to them". In the year 2017. All the resources listed above are literally free, and provide limitless access to precious evidence that the city of Oakland appears to just want to ignore.

But as someone above already mentioned, it seems they live to respond to crimes "in progress". But that also scares the crap out of me because if I ever had to report someone breaking into my house, their response would likely be "shoot first, ask questions later" and being the home owner, I might be one of the people they first come across. I used to live in a condo with my neighbor being the San Francisco police chief, and I used to watch the cameras pretty regularly. One time I went and knocked on his door to mention a guy who appeared to match the description of someone who had stolen one of our indoor cameras loitering outside the building, and attempting to see inside. The very first thing he did was grab his .38 and sprint out the door and down the stairs. After that incident, and witnessing his response, I felt like I needed to re-assess how I report crimes... because it can very literally get an innocent person killed.

Anyway, just food for thought.
Surprising and sad to hear. For all DC's faults, the police here are amazing. If a few neighbors get together and say we want more police presence because of X or Y, you can bet they'll send more car, bike, and foot patrols down your block at least for a while. They go out of their way to be helpful, with the caveat that property crimes like a non-in-progress broken-into car is going to get a very low priority response. Then again, my guess is we have more police per capita than most other places. You can't drive 4 blocks without seeing a cop. As far as footage, I've provided it to MPD a number of times and it has made the MPD YouTube channel where they post videos about persons of interest or suspects.
 

Fastb

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The police dept has no Facebook wall that the public can post to. They have no email address to email a link to Youtube. They have quite literally no way for me to get a video to them. They requested I "bring the file to them". In the year 2017.
I have a similar story.

In 2015, a car sped past me illegally on a two lane road approaching a blind curve. Solid double yellow line, ie: no passing. He kept speeding, maybe 50mph in a 25mph zone. 1/2 mile later, in the distance, I saw the car go off the road and crash through the guard rail, and ended up straddling the sidewalk. A pedestrian was 25 ft away at the time of the crash.

When I pulled over, the driver was still in the car, dazed. When asked, he said he was okay. Then he tried to start his car to drive away. I explained the crash had severely damaged the front of his car, and antifreeze was running down the sidewalk. The driver got out to take a look. He stood directly in the steam of anti-freeze, and tugged on the dangling bumper. I thought; "This is strange, maybe he's drunk? But it's 7:30am. Maybe it's drugs? Maybe he's a few cards short of a full deck?"

My car was equipped with 4 cams and an NVR. I caught it all.

Later, I called the police, saying I was a witness, and I had footage. They said a detective would call me later. The next day, I got a call. The detective was interested in the footage. But couldn't visit me to view the footage. He didn't have access to YouTube from police computers (their IT dept blocks access). And he couldn't receive the video by email (I forget the reason). He asked me to drop off the video. Their location made that inconvenient to me, and frankly, why should a witness who is trying to help them do their job, have to spend time & energy? The detective agreed that a DVD in the mail was acceptable.

I offloaded the video from the NVR. I chose the "self extracting, with embedded video player" file type. This is suitable to comply with "Chain of Custody" requirements, which prevents tampering with the video. Meaning the video could be used in court, ie: the "evidence is admissible"

My only stipulation was that my employer not be identified, unless they asked me first. My employer sold cams and NVRs to police, bus and train customers. (that was the system I had in my car). I didn't think it was my decision to get my company involved. If the police found the evidence was useful, then some higher-ups in my company would decide how to get involved. (eg: the Legal Dept, Sr Mgmt, etc)

A few weeks later, I contacted the detective and asked about my video. He appreciated seeing the footage, and said the driver was charged with "speed in excess of conditions". The dangerous passing on a blind curve and his reckless driving warranted a "Reckless Driving" charge, the detective admitted. But my stipulation that I be contacted before the video was used in official documents made them decide to not use that evidence. Arrgh!

A head-on collision on the blind turn could have happened. A pedestrian could have been hit. The driver was clearly speeding, twice the speed limit. And I had the footage of the driver's very strange behavior after the accident, trying to leave the scene of an accident, and showing he shouldn't have been behind the wheel of a car.

Conclusions:
- The PD was unable to easily accept video evidence, they
- made it inconvenient for the witness (me) to submit evidence, and most aggravating,
- they didn't use the evidence.
- They pretty much let the driver off with barely a slap on the hand.

Fastb
 
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