PEEPING CAMS INTRUSIVE IN HIGH SOCIETY:
SAVE DISENFRANCHISED FROM POLICE

by

Dortell Williams

(Approx. 280 words non-fiction)

Sometimes the contrast of our two Americans is undeniable it’s almost surreal. I say this after watching broadcast news reports of a recent unpopular proposal to lace the pristine streets of Beverly Hills, California, with high-tech cameras programmed to detect and then capture speeders on film.
The uniformed high society outcry was unmistakable: the upper-class and high-rollers don’t want cameras invading their privacy. That was the most prolific message throughout the televised sound bites.
On the other hand, some thirty minutes rides across town, in South LA, privacy rolled out of the city in the 60’s with the White flight. Since then, the working class and disenfranchised residents have endured systematic profiling, harassment and abuse by an occupying police department that could care less about privacy. The shameful history of the LAPD in South LA speaks for itself.
It is for this reason that many of us behind these incarcerating walls –a great many victims of the LAPD- are relieved to hear that the notorious department’s probationary period (or what is euphemistically called the federal consent decree) has been extended three years. The extension was needed until their penchant for profiling and other sins harnessed.
And while we’re not particularly fond of cameras either, it was a camera witnesses of Rodney King, Stanley Miller, and most recently Emilio Carrion (in San Bernardino) that actually exposed the truth of abuse we’re been trying to tell for decades but were ignored.
Invading cameras in and about the city might not be the best thing for a nation that prides itself on civil liberties, but for the disenfranchised cameras sure do a life-saving job on exposing the trespasses of the elite when no one will hear us.


Resource List:

Jamie Garcia, KCBS News, May16, 2006 (re: Camera proposal in Beverly Hills)

Larry Aubry, “LAPD Must Fully Comply with Extended Consent Decree: Urban Perspective (Opinion), Los Angeles, Sentinel, April 27, 2006:A7

Stephen Clark, “Bail is Set for Videographer of [S.B.] Police Shooting Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2006:B6

John Bacon, “No Charges Filed in Videotaped Beating” USA Today, April 4, 2005: 3A