Nachos for Fifty and Cameras for a Million or so

When the mundane is mixed with the extraordinary, the only word that can be used to describe the situation is surreal. That is what today was like. As expected, I arrived at the storefront and thus proceeded to continue where we left off yesterday passing out fliers. From the get go, a kind, elderly woman walked out and had a conversation with us as we passed by her house. This is when I learned another valuable function of doing tasks like the one that was at hand. After introductions and a little small talk, she cut right to the chase. She suspected her neighbors to be dealing drugs out of their house. The idea began when she noticed how the house next door was always having lots of traffic after midnight and later. So, being fed up with the situation, she told us in the hopes of having them arrested. Apparently, it is information like this that is instrumental in learning of the location of dealers, making buys, and finally having them thrown in prison. The tiny tidbits given out here ad there start an avalanche of actions. While nothing like it was in the 80s and 90s, the neighborhood still has a handful of suspected drug houses and general trouble spots. The day wasn’t all narcotics though. There was a health mixture of theft in there too. Several Businesses in the area have had pipes, wiring, and ac units stolen from the outside of there properties this month. Plenty of business owners told us about this problem and were encouraged to take action by installing more lights, filing another police report, or even attending the crime watch meetings. Not everything that was stolen though was metal. Right outside the police storefront someone stole a sign that had the date and time for the next crime watch meeting. Little did the bold criminal know that there was a camera not 100 ft. from where the sign was. Thus began our adventure to dispatch and communications. Dispatch is the place where police get their assignments over the radio. It was also our first stop on our way to the video surveillance room. The sequence goes like this: Someone calls 911, the kind people at communications answer the call and reroutes the call to the police ( or fire it depends), a dispatcher then gives the assignment to the appropriate officer and rushes over to see what can be done. The amount of technology required to do this is ridiculous. At each cubical there was a minimum of four monitors- all of them running, all of them with different information. I though two was more than enough. four seems excessive to me, but hey, to each their own. It wasn’t until I saw the sergeant’s desk that I though things were really over the top. Her job was to monitor the dispatchers and make sure everything was running ok. To do this, she needed seven monitors running. In short, that job seems crazy complicated. After our little tour though, we found our way back on track in the video room. Things turned big brother after we started looking at the cameras. Spread out over Dallas, there are 120 plus cameras streaming live feed to the surveillance room and recording every second of it. The purpose is obvious. The police want to help stop more crimes. In all honesty, it has been helpful in that regard. We spent the next 20 or so minutes watching the horrible things that have been caught on camera. Traffic accidents, manslaughter, and a shameful mugging were the chosen highlights. One can only be happy that crimes like this are stopped thanks to this technology. But things did get a little creepy. We watched footage of Ms. Parris and I putting up signs by the side of the road. At the time, I had no idea I was being watched and was frankly a little unsettled at the notion that at any given time someone could be recording my every action. To add to my mild worries, I was informed that 300 cameras were to be installed very soon. It is my advice to avoid doing anything illegal on the road or near the intersection. To top off our informative escapade and end the day, we ordered nachos for the meeting tonight. I couldn’t help but notice the camera right on the corner watching my mundanity.