- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Snips from the article below, but the full thing is worth reading.
My small town in South Carolina will soon have more Flock cameras than police officers.
the city council of my small town of Irmo, South Carolina, voted to install 22 new Flock cameras. That’ll bring the total up to 33. With a population of only 12,000 or so, it means there’ll be one Flock camera for every 300 residents. That means there will be more Flock cameras in my town than police officers.
The vote for the cameras was a hot topic in local news and South Carolina social media. The city council expected a lot of people to show and asked folks to sign up early if they wanted to talk.
I wasn’t the only person who decided to speak. More than 10 other citizens went to the podium and spoke out against the cameras.
“I’m pretty enthralled by all the pushback you’re getting on the cameras you installed without asking a single member of the community if they wanted them installed,” said another resident, a man in a T-shirt and shorts. “If you give the government a tool, they will misuse it. Period. End of story. Get rid of them or we will get rid of them for you.”
For a bit, I thought it was possible that the town might not install these cameras. Then the police chief stood up and explained how he’d used Flock to capture pedophiles and I knew that was probably the end of it.
Police chief Bobby Dale has long been an advocate for the expansion of Flock in town. He told local outlet News19 that 33 cameras will allow him to see all the entrances and exits. “That would ultimately cover pretty much every nook and cranny, every entry point into the town,” he said. “That’s what we want. As the chief of police, I’ve got to make sure our town is safe. I’m learning that with these cameras, with these license plate readers, we’re solving crimes and solving them quicker.”
During the city council meeting, Dale explained that Flock cameras had been instrumental in a To Catch a Predator style sting operation Irmo PD conducted. “During an internet crimes against children operation hosted by a department, 15 adults traveled to our community believing they were coming to meet children for sexual activity," Dale said. “Fourteen of those 15 suspects were not from our jurisdiction.”
“So you lured them here. Into our town. Genius,” the T-shirt and shorts guy shouted from the back of the room. This was the guy who’d said the community would remove the Flock cameras if the city didn’t. The mayor had police escort him from the meeting. He left without a fight and Dale finished his speech praising Flock.
Mayor Bill Danielson opened his portion of the Flock discussion by talking about how he’d recently commiserated with other mayors at the conference about how mean people were on Facebook.
“I came back with a renewed vigor to be the mayor of this town,” he said. “And knowing that I’m not the only one being abused on Facebook, social media, by some people in this room. It’s going to take a whole lot more than that to sway any position I may or may not have on behalf of these citizens.”
“Every one of those mayors either wanted Flock, was trying to figure out how to budget for Flock, or had Flock and was figuring out how to increase their presence.”
My city council voted 4 to 1 to increase the presence of Flock in this small town of 12,000 people. Police chief Dale will soon have more cameras than officers. And, if they can get money from the state, they may also purchase a drone from Flock to use as part of the company’s “drones as first responder” program.
Small towns are the most paranoid about crime. They act like it’s everywhere and lurking in every shadow. I moved from a city of 450k to 4k in highschool and the rules in the small town were much more strict. We couldn’t even wear hats in high school cause “gangs” or something. Band shirts weren’t allowed, chain wallets, basically everything that nobody cared about in my previous school.
I remember that. Small town living is resentful of teenagers. Small kids are of course fine and adorable and cute - until they are teenagers. Then they don’t want to see you, they don’t want you to exist at all. You are in the adults and more likely, the elderly’s way.
So they will police everything you do as a teenager in your small town, exactly like you said. I remember I was driving home (from the gas station ironically from above) and suddenly noticed headlights were following my car. My friends and I were spooked, so we pulled into a parking lot to stop and hopefully they’d drive by. Turns out it was a cop, because of course it was. We were “acting suspicious”. Which yes we fucking were because we had an unknown car following us at night. He “let us off with a warning”.
I remember they built a brand new “youth center” for teenagers and kids to hang out at. Of course during the day it sat unused, so the old people started using it. Then the rules started coming in. Then we weren’t allowed to touch their things. Then you know it, they banned the kids altogether and it became a second community center, with teenagers not welcome. Took them a few years but they got it.
Then they wonder why kids act out. They’re micromanaged, they’re not allowed anywhere, they’re told to shut up and not be seen. So kids loiter, they get bored, and that leads to petty crime because there is nothing to fucking do in a small town. And adults are just baffled at the concept.
Here I am, 25 years later and I’m still livid at the “local leaders” of the small town. Their royal fiefdom in the middle of fucking nowhere, surrounded by cornfields. Got the hell out of there. May they rot there in their piercing agony of boredom.
Yup , and you ask why would anyone say Anna live here? And you always get “it’s a good place to raise a family” yeah if you want kids drinking at 14, pregnant at 15, etc.