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news

Thornhill SUV Driver Damages Property, Our Faith in Others

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As the Toronto Police Service prepares to expand CCTV coverage in the GTA, this security camera footage of a BMW SUV going alpha-dog on top of someone’s hatchback, recorded last Thursday at an Extreme Fitness parking lot in Thornhill, has made us realize a few things:
A) It is actually possible to drive guiltily. Somewhere between R, D, and N on that SUV’s gearshift is a little notch marked: “OH SHI-.”
B) In large part, people are unaware of the extent of surveillance surrounding them in Toronto and its environs. (Note: Thornhill isn’t served by TPS and thus won’t be affected by the CCTV push.)
C) Surveillance that is invisible and ubiquitous is also remarkably effective in the service of justice.
With regards to C, in the far more serious and not-at-all-funny case of Christopher Skinner, killed on the eighteenth in a hit-and-run, security camera footage might prove instrumental in tracking down the killers, as the Globe points out. Also, Michael Bryant’s case will likely hinge on security camera footage.
CCTV has the power to hold people accountable for misdeeds, and that’s undoubtedly a good thing. But it also has the power to invade privacy and mortify the unwitting. Hilarious though the above video is, and as much as it will help in tracking down a person who broke the law, it’s also someone’s deeply humiliating moment—and thanks to whoever leaked it, it has been getting wide exposure. YouTube made it Torontoist’s province, but it’s clearly none of our business.
Google has taught us that surveillance can be fun, and the Toronto Police Services Board, which approved its new CCTV implementation plan last Thursday, makes a convincing case for CCTV’s utility in promoting public safety. But let’s all stay just a little bit worried about the proliferation of hidden cameras in the city, hey? They’re only good as long as the people monitoring them are.

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Comments

  • http://undefined TokyoTuds

    I have no problem with CCTV on private property like a parking lot, or in a retail store. But public streets should not have CCTV as it is a slippery slope to a surveillance society by a government, and an infringement on our right to privacy.
    “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
    – Benjamin Franklin

  • rek

    CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, says police

    Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

    1,000 cameras ‘solve one crime’

    Only one crime was solved by each 1,000 CCTV cameras in London last year, a report into the city’s surveillance network has claimed.

    Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime is unsolved!

    “These figures suggest there is no link between a high number of CCTV cameras and a better crime clear-up rate. We have estimated that CCTV cameras have cost the taxpayer in the region of £200million in the last 10 years but it’s not entirely clear if some of that money would not have been better spent on police officers.”

    British Study Says CCTV Cameras Don’t Deter Crime

    Only location where CCTV system helped decrease crime was in parking lots … “For the most part, CCTV did not produce reductions in crime and it did not make people feel safer.”

    Improved street lighting cuts more crime than CCTV
    etc
    I really hope we don’t invest millions of dollars just to learn this first-hand.

  • http://undefined Posterchild

    You beat me to it, Rek!

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    You do realize the video recording in question failed to capture the license plate number, right?

  • http://undefined Ryan Coleman

    “Hilarious though the above video is, and as much as it will help in tracking down a person who broke the law, it’s also someone’s deeply humiliating moment—and thanks to whoever leaked it, it has been getting wide exposure.”
    Had the person done the right thing there would have been a very good chance this video never would have seen the light of day. IMHO – this idiot deserves all the humiliation they get.
    @rek solving is one thing. Providing supporting evidence is a very different thing. Yes CCTV cameras may not give us a screaming obvious identification all the time but they often provide an effective visual confirmation of what took place.

  • http://undefined David Wolever

    Am I the only one more than a little impressed by how easily the SUV climbed up onto those cars?

  • http://undefined Nerfgun

    Anything out in public is “our business”, really. Seems to me that if it’s an event you could witness first-hand in public, then CCTV is fair. Glad this idiot hit-and-run will get busted.

  • http://undefined Andy

    There must’ve been some damage sustained by the SUV. I hope the video makes its way around enough for whatever BMW dealership the owner has the repairs done at to make the connection and report its owner to the authorities.

  • http://undefined fearofcorners

    Am I the only one wondering what law the SUV driver broke? I was under the impression that car accidents on private property do not fall under any traffic act. Can someone correct me if I’m wrong?

  • http://stevekupferman.typepad.com Steve Kupferman

    I’m no lawyer, but my assumption was that damaging another person’s property and fleeing the scene is always going to be somehow illegal.
    If someone does know otherwise, please let me know.

  • http://undefined wesshepherd

    No, you’re not the only one. In spite of the driver’s cowardly act of running away and the absolute crap driving skills, one must have a grudging respect for the ease with which the BMW was able to make that climb. Good old German Engineering!

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    Bravo!

  • http://www.quinparker.com Quin Parker
  • http://undefined Brill Pappin

    It’s a slippery slope when you start adding CCTV cameras everywhere.
    In my opinion (that not many want to hear anyway) if it’s filming me on public property where anyone might see it anyway, it needs to accessible to the public.
    Like most people, I’m conflicted about it. On the one hand I want my own privacy, on the other hand I would sure like to catch the gluteus maximus orifice who keeps breaking into my car, and stealing things off my porch (bike is not safe). A camera would go a long way to doing that.
    I think the only real solution is to allow cameras on private property to remain private and public cameras to remain public domain. The Bryant/Shappard case is a perfect example. It films public space and we should all have access to the unaltered high quality video to do our own analysis of. If we don’t, there is too much risk IMO that what we see could be altered or taken out of context of the surrounding video (mainstream media does it all the time).
    We’re very lucky that in our society, the chances of the average person meeting with foul-play in the form of video footage is small (at least I have to believe that anyway) but it doesn’t take much for it to be abused.
    I’m against CCTV not because I think it invades my privacy really, but because it can be manipulated or abused. Unless we can be assured that multiple non-partisan copies of any particular video exist, we can’t fully trust what we are seeing.

  • http://undefined rek

    CCTV isn’t sold to the public as merely a way of confirming what happened, it’s (falsely) sold as a crime-solving tool that also deters crime.

  • http://undefined wesshepherd

    Orwell may have miscalculated the date but he did predict the way society would develop fairly accurately. Listening to crap music, being fed government propaganda while constantly under various forms of surveillance, initiative and ambition supplanted by the lure of easy money, state-run lotteries or outright criminal activity.
    It all goes back to Tokyotuds comment right at the top.

  • http://undefined metabaron

    Re: the enlarged video of Bryant/Sheppard I’d rather these things be settled in court (where they belong). After all, that is why we have courts.
    Also, at what cost are these cameras going to be installed? I’d rather see that money spent on something else: improving transit for example.

  • http://undefined rek

    Or maybe another separate school.

  • http://undefined Svend

    Cameras nailed the woman who was involved in kidnapping and killing Tori in Woodstock earlier this year. I’m fine with them as long as they’re not in my home.

  • rek
  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping
  • http://undefined Curtis

    If the video in the article isn’t working for you either, try this link here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_O60m2wj7Y