More problems at METRO's park and pillage lots
A couple of weeks ago, Anne Linehan noted that METRO finally had installed surveillance equipment at its Park and Pillage lots, nearly two years after METRO police chief Tom Lambert ended human security at those lots and crime predictably shot up.
Richard Connelly reports in the latest Houston Press that the bad guys have found yet a new way to pillage METRO's parking lots:
Metro's Park & Ride lots have had their troubles with security. The transit agency formed a Task Force to study the problem at one point, so you know they're serious.
And a few weeks ago they put out a press release (another sign of a problem being taken very, very seriously) that solemnly declared: "Safety at Metro's Park & Ride lots is taking a quantum leap forward with the ongoing installation of the agency's new high-tech security system."
The "high-tech" system consists of...cameras. Which sounds high-tech for the 1840s. But that wasn't all: "The multifaceted system also features call boxes for patrons who have an emergency or who spot suspicious activities, a public address system, and entrance gates that can be closed at a moment's notice." Space-age entrance gates that can be closed!! The Computer Age has arrived!!
Sadly, not everything's going so well. Metro announced it has a new crime problem at the lots: criminals are stealing the pay phones.
Three such phones were stolen in October, and subsequent investigations revealed eight others have been taken, says Ray Wathen, a Crime Stoppers spokesman.
Connelly has more details here.
Figuring in the cost of the surveillance system and the costs to METRO and to drivers of the vandalism and thefts, I wonder how much money METRO has "saved" at this point by ditching the human security at the Park and Pillage lots?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/14/06 08:02 AM | Print |
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