Jose Aguayo wondered how different it all would’ve been if the cameras had been up just a few weeks before. If the neighbor’s camera had worked that night. If a camera had been on the street somewhere.
If. If. If.
It’s a warm August evening in Pacoima and Aguayo is standing in the driveway where his cousin was shot seven years ago. The murder happened in the early morning hours after the family had just wrapped up a birthday barbecue. His cousin, Ernesto Cardenas, wanted to move his car to park in front of the house. Aguayo told him to leave it.
Instead, after he moved the vehicle, a gunman walked up to him and fired. Three shots and Cardenas fell facedown. Aguayo came running out and started to do CPR on Cardenas as the gunman and two others fled. Los Angeles Police Department detectives arrived within minutes. Arrests were made within hours, but the case was never solved.
This is where Aguayo looks up at the overhang on the driveway. Days after the shooting, the family installed surveillance cameras. Looking at the monitor in the kitchen after they were put in, he said the spot where Cardenas was killed would’ve been recorded. Aguayo believes if the cameras had been up on May 14, 2008, Cardenas’ killer wouldn’t be walking free today. He believes it wouldn’t be an unsolved homicide.
“The cameras would’ve caught all of it,” he said.
An analysis of the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner’s data by the Los Angeles News Group showed police solved about 54 percent of the more than 11,200 cases investigated as homicides; the national average is 63 percent. Of those, more than 11,200 homicides, 4,862 — or 46 percent — remain unsolved in the county.
Cameras or no cameras
Cameras catching crime or preventing crime have been the subject of vigorous debate as privacy concerns are weighed against wishes for public safety. Do they help solve crime or is it just one more area of loss of privacy in an advancing high-tech world? One of the Boston Marathon bombers was tracked down largely on the strength of video footage showing him placing an explosive backpack on the ground.
Los Angeles Police Department officials give some credit to security cameras for leading to the arrest of a 17-year-old charged with killing Aniya Ray Parker in Hollywood in October. Surveillance cameras caught the shooting of the transgender woman, and police believe it was a botched robbery.
Lt. Bert Mora, officer in charge of LAPD’s department of operations, said video has become far more routine for detectives to seek when a crime has been committed.
Mora, who used to be a homicide detective in the late ’90s, said he’d ask if there was video at the crime scene but always felt it was a lucky strike to have it available. He said now it’s one of the first things that’s asked and it’s not shocking when some sort of video is available.
“We would like to see cameras used as a deterrent,” Mora said. “But having a detective able to review a crime on video is a valuable tool to have.”
• Database: Los Angeles County’s Unsolved Homicides
In its biggest division, which includes the downtown area and a stretch of public housing units, LAPD monitors 1,157 cameras. Police also have access to California Department of Transportation cameras at busy intersections. Mora said the net gets wider when LAPD can request video surveillance footage from state and federal recording devices. He also said detectives will find footage from private cameras — whether it be exterior monitors in a commercial business park or a store or bank. Glendale Police Department officers regularly review store footage once a week trying to nab shoplifters. But the department also said it would like more cameras to catch hit-and-run suspects, but budget and manpower are barriers right now.
Among its 21 divisions, Mora said, the downtown division has twice the number of cameras to monitor compared with all the other divisions combined — fewer than 600. It’s a long way from 2003, when seven cameras were placed in MacArthur Park in an attempt to drive down gang-related crime.
Other cities have their own networks of cameras they monitor, with Hermosa Beach being the latest municipality to add 34 near its pier plaza and three parking structures.
But that was a hotly debated proposal that took about two years and hours of debate before the city council agreed to a $235,588 contract with Glendale-based Sierra Group to install the system.
Hermosa Beach Mayor Nannette Barragan said at the meeting where the cameras were approved that she wished there were fewer cameras but cited sex crimes and robberies being up as a justification for her support. Still, cameras had to be reconfigured so they wouldn’t be able to see into areas of private property.
“If it was going into a private place,” she said, “that would be more of a concern.”
But are private places eroding? According to Illinois-based VinTech Security, after Beijing and London, the next three most camera-heavy cities are U.S-based: Chicago, Houston and New York. But all are a long way from England, where a study showed there is approximately one closed circuit TV camera for every 14 people.
At issue: Who owns the camera
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California wants to be clear — it has no objection to private cameras on private property. And it will defend the right of people to record video from public property into public areas.
But government using cameras to watch private citizens is where the organization objects.
Peter Bibring, senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said the issue is the power that comes with the government operating and controlling the cameras.
“Private citizens, store owners and business people don’t have the authority to investigate, serve warrants and arrest you, while the government does,” Bibring said. “The nature of government power is uniquely different that way.”
• More Coverage: Getting Away With Murder
He said studies have also shown that cameras don’t necessarily lead to less crime.
A study by the California Research Bureau commissioned in 2008 looked at a comparison of cameras placed in the 700-unit Jordan Downs Public Housing Project in Watts and along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and found decreases in violent crime — 1.9 percent in the Hollywood area and 20.2 percent in the Jordan Downs area. But the study said the findings showing the drops to be statistically insignificant because of the duration of the study.
Bibring said similar studies in England have also shown marginal effects on lowering crime rates.
But the number of cameras are only part of the issue. Who is watching the cameras is another.
Seeing without understanding
Ram Nevatia, professor of computer science and electrical engineering at USC, said broad camera coverage tracking daily life is the hardest to monitor.
He said many cameras in a public place can trigger lots of false alarms. But in a constrained place with an idea of what you’re looking for, it is more effective and less labor intensive.
Nevatia said the next big step is cameras that can recognize suspicious behavior. He said that technology is moving forward “at a good clip,” but it’s still far off for being effectively deployed in public places with high traffic loads. There is the push for facial recognition technology, better night-vision cameras and surveillance systems that know something is out of the norm.
“That’s the technology they want,” he said. “It’s just not there yet.”
But for Aguayo, it’s a small comfort. In his mind, the early morning of May 14, 2008, rolls over and over in his mind in a loop. If the camera had been up, he could’ve played it for detectives. If the shooters had seen the cameras, might they have turned away? He knows those are unknowable questions, but when searching for meaning, he’ll cling to anything.
“I miss him so much,” he said. “He was like a little brother to me.”
To report information on a crime or about his case, call 800-222-TIPS.
