Man Arrested for Shooting Traffic Camera
November 28th, 2007Taking out tens of thousands of dollars worth of police state revenue collection equipment with a dollar’s worth of ammunition? Some would call it asymmetric warfare. Others would call it priceless. It will be interesting to see how this case winds up. If the state makes any link between the crime and politics, it will be prosecuted as terrorism. You know, like Jeff Luers, who’s doing more time for burning some SUVs than he would do if he had murdered someone.
I doubt that this kind of thing will catch on in the U.S., but check out the absurd lengths to which the fascists in the UK are willing to go to to protect the cameras. Yes. Security cameras to watch the speed cameras.
UPDATE: In UK, It’s War on the Cameras (Thanks, Jason.)
Via: AP:
Police have lost red-light cameras to traffic accidents but never to gun play. “This is the first one that’s been shot,” Capt. Gordon Catlett said of the wounded camera at the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Interstate 640 — one of 15 camera-equipped intersections in the city.
Clifford E. Clark, 47, was charged with felony vandalism and reckless endangerment for allegedly firing at least three rounds from a .30-06 hunting rifle at the camera, knocking it out of action.
He was arrested after patrol officers heard shots around 2 a.m. Sunday, spotted a minivan leaving the parking lot of a closed business and pulled it over. Inside they found Clark and the high-powered rifle.
Clark, now facing a $50 fine if convicted and loss of his rifle, refused to say anything about the incident to police, leaving the motive unclear.
Catlett, who oversees the red-light camera program, said 6,798 drivers have been photographed running the red light at Broadway and I-640 and ticketed since the camera was installed in 2006. Clark was not one of them, he said.
Here’s a nice collection of photographs.
http://www.speedcam.co.uk/gatso2.htm