I'd like talk for a bit about an article I read in the Star Tribune yesterday... Headline was, "Police ask help to ID thieves buying big at Target stores." Apparently these desperados have rolled up more than $20,000 in charges on stolen credit cards. Accompanying the article was the requisite photograph of our criminals taken from one of the 27, 329 hidden cameras in the store - a good thing, you'd think, and a boon to the efforts of our local boys in blue. Nothing like a photo to aid in identifying these miscreants.
Well, yes. Except these photos, like all photos taken of dangerous 7-11 holdup artists were so blurry they were worse than useless! Lord Voldemort had more features in his face than these criminals. There they were, captured in photographic splendor...striped shirt and baseball cap on one, work shirt, tie and either a beret or the worst haircut ever on the other...but that was the extent of any identifying detail. Their faces were nothing more than white blobs, featureless as a lump of silly putty - no, I take that back - silly putty would have MORE detail.
So I've gotta ask. If you're going to go through all the time and effort of running an article asking for the public's help in identifying someone, wouldn't you want to release a picture that might actually contain, oh, say a nice shot of their FACE? You might just as well have run an image of a store mannequin (and, in fact, I'm not so sure that isn't what they did.)
It seems like all the store security cameras in the world share this disturbing lack of focus, making me think, "Man, whoever sells these pieces of crap must be the GREATEST salesman in the world!" "Well, yes, Mr. (or Mrs.) store owner. It's true that my camera has the resolution of a child's camera with its lens smeared with Vaseline, but I assure you, this is STATE-OF-THE-ART technology! Hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of law-breakers have been brought to justice using these photos, as juries will ALWAYS look at an indistinguishable blob sitting on a blurry body and say, "THAT'S HIM! THAT'S the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible!" (Can you guess where that quote came from?)
And, just as amazing, said store owners must be falling for the pitch buying these things by the thousands! They're everywhere!
It doesn't exactly raise my faith in the ability of the local cops to put an end to crime, but it DOES make me want to go into the security camera manufacturing business. You'd have to work REALLY hard to make a camera that could take worse shots! And, come to think of it, maybe that's the goal. Somewhere, someplace, there's a security camera manufacturer's convention...booths proudly displaying fuzzy walls full of photos, distributors clamoring for the latest camera that promises an even MORE indistinguishable rendering of a crime scene. It's money ripe for the picking!
