Paul Bass Photo
One of three fatal crash scenes in nine years at the corner of York Street and South Frontage Road.
Advocates of “speed cameras” on perilous streets invoked traffic stop-sparked police violence to argue that the devices protect rather than curtail civil rights.
That’s a new argument. One camera skeptic who wore the badge isn’t buying it.
The statewide safe-streets advocates made that argument at a Jan. 30 hearing at the state legislature as national headlines focused on the police killing of a Memphis man, Tyre Nichols.
The Jan. 30 hearing was on a bill championed by New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar. The bill would ease the way for the city to install an automated enforcement system under which cameras would record the license plates of cars speeding recklessly through high-crash locations.
Lemar has pushed the bill, and New Haven advocates have supported it, for years. But it keeps dying in the legislature in part over civil rights concerns, that drivers of color would be disproportionately targeted.
At the Jan. 30 hearing, many members of the public who testified expressed support for the automated traffic oversight, deeming the technology a means of enforcing laws against reckless driving and thereby reducing preventable deaths. Some said they hoped automated fining could reduce the need for armed police to respond to infractions like speeding, arguing that motor-vehicle-stop interactions with officers too often end with violent outcomes — like the tragic murder of Tyre Nicols in Memphis after he was brutally beaten by a group of cops who reportedly pulled him over for reckless driving.
The advocates argued that an automated system would make the enforcement of speeding laws fairer and remove it from potential civil-rights violations. (Click here to read more about that here and here to read about key provisions of the bill, including measures added to address past criticisms.)
Support for the cameras has built along with the level of carnage in New Haven and statewide: 239 motorists and passengers and 75 pedestrians died on Connecticut roads last year. Those numbers mark a 41.5 percent and 31 percent jump respectively over the last five years.
The camera skeptic referenced above, retired New Haven Assistant Police Chief John Velleca, tackled that argument during a broad conversation on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program about the policing issues raised by Nichols’ death. He cast his concerns over speed cameras with broader concerns over the proliferation of surveillance cameras in general in communities like New Haven, along with potential added uses for the speed cameras.
An edited excerpt of that conversation follows.
"Once Out Of 100 Years: 1 Time Too Many"
Safe Streets Coalition Photo
Signs from a New Haven safe-streets protest supporting speed cameras.
Paul Bass File Photo
John Velleca at WNHH FM.
WNHH: Speed cameras would be set up so you can get their license plates. You drive bad, you get billed. For years that’s been killed. Year after year at the Capitol, they say, “Black and brown communities say this is going to be used more against us,” although some of the demands come from those communities. Civil liberties people say, “You’re guilty until proven innocent under this. It’s not going to be done well. It’s just going to be a moneymaker.” This year Tyre Nichols entered the debate. They said, “When people are arbitrarily stopped for traffic violations, they can turn into these horrible incidents. Horrible for the cop. Horrible for the victim. So with speed cameras, it’s everybody speeding or driving like a crazy person. You don’t have the human element of it turning into something horrible or be arbitrary. They’re saying, “This becomes a civil rights and civil liberties reason to put in the cameras.” What do you think, John?
VELLECA: I’m not a proponent of [video] surveillance in our communities. I’ve never been. Dare I say that and have [Mayor] Justin Elicker call me a dinosaur, as he did last time.
What I can say is this: We sat here a year ago and debated the city getting [hundreds of new] surveillance cameras.
That’s a separate issue …
It’s a tangential issue.
Listen, we’re in New Haven. How many times have I gotten the license plate — it didn’t come back to the car. It was unregistered. It was a misuse. …
We’re gonna get to the point where every inch of our city is covered by a camera for some reason.
You’re going to tell me, if we have a speed camera up, and somebody commits a felony, we’re not going to enforce that felony because it’s on a speed camera? Of course, we are.
[What if] the camera is pointed right at the intersection, right at the cars?’
Could be. What happens if that camera catches a felony, a criminal felony without a motor vehicle violation? What do you do with that information? Do you not act on it? You can’t not act on it. And of course you’re gonna act on it.
They’ve refined the program. They said they’re gonna [make placements] based on the data, where there’s the worst driving, the most crashes. …
That’s great. That’s a good political dance. I understand that. But listen, it probably will follow that data. Okay. But I’ll bet anything, if there was a crime camera that’s covering that area ready, they’re gonna move that camera and put it somewhere else.
[You said] you’re worried that there might be a felony right at that intersection. Right where the light is, right where the cameras is pointed at car license plates. How often is that going to be? Versus how many people might get caught or fined.
If you were to ask me, if we were to invade people’s rights, and put them under surveillance and catch them once out of 100 years, that’s one time too many.
If I have a car, I don’t have a right to run the light at 80 miles per hour and swerve at the last second and not look what I’m doing because I’m talking on the phone.
Sure.
How does it violate my rights to have my license plate [picture] taken when it’s shown I did that?
I think in that one particular instance, maybe it doesn’t violate your rights. And you weigh that against the safety of the community. But I think when you start bringing cameras in for every small little violation that the communities complain about, I think you’re you’re opening a door where you can’t close it.
I agree with that. And but we’re going a little bit against the tide of history, because as Mayor Elicker said, that’s over. People decided we want the cameras in society, and they are everywhere. People have their home cameras, their Ring cameras, I share your concerns about civil liberties. Again, I’m wondering if we’re doing too much of a blanket here with the speed cameras.
I think that the police officer or at least the administrative police officer in me says, “Is there another way I can do the same thing?”
Is there?
I think there is. I think that if you’re proactive with your motor vehicle enforcement … [being] proactive.
But we said earlier that we got to watch out for that [“proactive” car stops] …
Proactive motor vehicle enforcement. You’re instructing the officers that we’re not using it as pretextual stops.
So in other words, if I pull you over for a red light, the questioning doesn’t turn to: “Where you going? Where you coming from? What’s this? What’s that? You got anything in the car?” We’re talking about the red light infraction. And that’s it.
So you were worried about the video used to get a license plate capturing unintentionally a felony being used. How will this be different from you stopping the person in the car, and you do notice there’s a gun on the ground? Or bags of crack?
That’s a different story. To be honest with you, I was a pretty assertive police officer, OK? I’ve never stopped a car with a gun was up on the dash and we made an arrest. Every gun I’ve taken out of a car was found after a line of questioning and removal from the person in the car in search of the car.
I’m saying: If you’re gonna do motor vehicle enforcement, do motor vehicle enforcement.
If you could combine [other investigation] and stay constitutionally sound, OK. But a lot of times we can’t. We’re fishing. And that’s where I think is the dangerous thing.
When I see somebody getting pulled over for a motor vehicle violation, and the officer starts in on a line of questioning: “Where are you going? Where do you live? Where are you coming from? Do you work?” All this other stuff, right? Why? Why are we doing that? Why are we putting people under that kind of interrogation? Because that’s exactly what that is. Because you’re not asking questions just to wonder. You’re interrogating someone because you’re looking for a guilty response.
Do we have a real problem with out-of-control driving that’s really ending people’s lives?
We do have a problem. But here’s the thing. As administrators, police administrators especially, you have to at some time have the guts to stand up and say, “No, we’re not going to do that. Because we’re going to view the rights of society holistically. We’re going to look at everybody.”
I love that. But aren’t we now forgetting the rights of people to walk in the street and ride their bikes?
I understand that too. But what do we do? Do we violate the rights of more people I guess, to take care of a small majority?
I don’t agree with cameras everywhere.
Where would you support cameras?
I used cameras many times. If we had an area that was characterized by gang activity, we documented it. We wrote for a warrant. And we got a pole camera or surveillance. If there’s cause in a specific area, I’m all for it, but to arbitrarily stack cameras, because you know, the number’s gone up in a certain area for motor vehicle violations … So we stop a problem at Ella Grasso [Boulevard] and Washington, right? And then at Congress and the Boulevard we have a problem, so we put another camera there. Six months later, we have problem here and put another camera over there.
Okay, are we moving the camera after Washington and Boulevard clears up and there are no more violations? Are we taking that camera down?
I’m usually in your camp [on this]. But I’m having a hard time imagining, in a real way, losing anything and not gaining a lot by just getting the video of the license plate when they drive like nuts. I don’t see any other way to really stop it. We’ve tried everything. We set up on Long Wharf Drive …
I think that with all that’s going on in the city of New Haven, there are simply not enough police officers to do what we need to do when it comes to motor vehicle. But they’re too busy handling costs.
If we’re going to be reactive, go to 911 calls and no walking beats and things like that. We could definitely get by with 300 cops, 250 even. But if we want all these peripheral things, motor vehicle violations, walking beats, that takes more cops, more money.
I think that the only way the government, which is what we are, should put you under surveillance is if there is cause to do that. You have to show that cause. I don’t think we should arbitrarily get into people’s lives. I think less policing is better. I think people are tired of the police being in their lives.
Click on the above video to watch the full conversation with criminal justice expert John Velleca about policing issued raised by the death of Tyre Nichols, including the role and culture of specialized police street-violence units, on WNHH FM’s“Dateline New Haven.”
Click here to subscribe to “Dateline New Haven” and here to subscribe to other WNHH FM podcasts.
Started reading this, saw that it was about a retired cop and thought to myself, "Meh, he doesn't like the cameras because he just wants to hire a gazillion cops."
And then I thought I was being unfair as I kept reading.
And then at the end of the article, after a couple of completely garbled efforts to cast himself as a civil libertarian, he came out and said it himself! He's just against anything that isn't hiring more cops!
As a New Haven resident and taxpayer, no thank you!