The blue lights are watching (well, sort of).

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that the city will be removing some blue light cameras as they modernize their video surveillance systems.

Police have complained for years about the limitations of the [current systems] which must be monitored on site with a laptop-style controller.

So the cop has to be near the camera in order to monitor the video. Doesn’t that defeat the point? Couldn’t they just stick their head out the window and watch the drug deals live?

The new units will be wired back to monitoring systems, but that still won’t solve the main issue. Even when the police are armed with video showing an alleged crime, the image quality is so poor that a prosecutor can’t use it.

"They are an expensive operation [at $30,000 apiece], and for the purpose of prosecution and evidence they really have had very little effect on building more cases," said Margaret Burns, a Jessamy spokeswoman.

Not so fast though! The article does tell us about one crime solved using the cameras!

A camera positioned at Calhoun and Cumberland streets did help homicide detectives solve a November 2006 murder. In that case the footage documented an assailant as he used a tree branch to bash a man sleeping on a park bench. The victim then fell to the ground, and the suspect left him for dead. Homicide detectives found the assailant's cell phone and located his sister. Though the footage was hard to make out, police said, she was able to identify her brother as a suspect.

Is this really the best they could come up with? Not only is this example almost two years old, the cell phone was the main mystery-solver, not the camera. Plus, the suspect had a bitch of a sister.

Apparently though, some neighborhoods clamor for a camera to be installed on their blocks as they act as a deterrent. The article states that on average, outdoor crime falls 7% after a blue light camera has been installed.

They could just install fake cameras (which would be equally effective if the main use is as a deterrent), but we’re spending free money here so who cares?