Most of the LAPD Surveillance Cameras Downtown Are Useless

Last week there were three stabbings on Skid Row within four days. The good news was that they occurred under a surveillance camera. The bad news was that the camera wasn't working.That's frustrating the business community, which chipped in for the cameras back in 2008. They were told that if they bought the cameras, LAPD would monitor and maintain them. But that didn't end up happening, according to the Los Angeles Times.

There are a lot of problems with the surveillance camera system, rendering it completely useless: The system frequently overheats because it is operated out of a closet-sized room in the police station. Six cameras in Little Tokyo were never plugged into the system. Some were broken and never fixed. Police broke some of the cameras, because they were never trained to use them right. The LAPD can't find a vendor to maintain the system.

"It is heartbreaking to see a network of cameras gifted to the LAPD sitting idle while perpetrators of violence get away with murder on our most dangerous streets," Estela Lopez, the executive director of Central City East Association, told the Times.