New Cameras Catch Murderer

[unimaginative2]

CRIME

Man caught on camera charged with murder
Widely broadcast images from surveillance video lead to arrest in slaying of 33-year-old homeless woman
TIMOTHY APPLEBY

An unemployed Toronto-area man whose picture was captured on a downtown surveillance camera and widely broadcast has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying last weekend of a homeless woman.

Yesterday's arrest marked the third recent homicide in the city where closed-circuit cameras have played a key role in arrests.

Accompanied by a lawyer, Martin Horacio De Narvaez, 21, surrendered to police early yesterday morning after a relative recognized him from television images, Detective Chris Buck of the homicide squad told a news conference.

Later in the day, Mr. De Narvaez appeared in court at Old City Hall and was remanded in custody. He is charged with strangling and bludgeoning 33-year-old Bly Markis, the city's 19th homicide victim so far this year.

No motive was immediately apparent because the pair had just met, Det. Buck told reporters. "There was not a lot of conversation prior to the murder," he said. "They met a short distance away from where she was discovered and the incident occurred very quickly."

Police yesterday praised the role of the cameras, whose expanded use in crime hot spots has stirred some protests about an encroachment on civil liberties.

On April 11, a suspect turned himself in to police after security cameras in a Scarborough apartment building captured pictures of a fatal beating.

Also last month, TTC security cameras recorded the stabbing of a subway passenger at Kennedy station. A 26-year-old man was arrested and charged with that killing a few days later.

Ms. Markis's body was discovered early Sunday in a basement stairwell in the Xerox Centre building near the intersection of Yonge and Bloor streets. Nearby surveillance cameras provided pictures of her walking hand in hand through the concourse Saturday night with a man who was later seen nearby, allegedly carrying her purse.

An autopsy on Monday found that Ms. Markis died of "strangulation with blunt impact facial trauma."

She grew up in North York but reportedly worked as a massage therapist in Southern California's affluent Ventura County before recently returning to Toronto. Difficulties with finding work and a drug-related brush with the law had left her homeless, acquaintances said.

On Monday, Toronto police switched on about a dozen of the force's own surveillance cameras around the city, as part of a six-month pilot program. Most are located in the downtown core's entertainment district, with others positioned in Scarborough's Malvern community and the Jane/ Finch district in North York.

The closed-circuit cameras run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but rather than watching the live feeds, police say they will review the footage only when an incident is reported.

 

[Bogtrotter]

Apparently crime is down in Britain where cameras are installed, although I'm not sure what affect this has with regard to the overall crime rate.

Glad they got this guy anyway. He'll be playing touch-yer-toes with Tyrone up at Milton pen for the next few decades I hope.

 

[Observer Walt]

This isn't the first time they have assisted in an arrest. It seems inevitable that we will have more and more cameras in public places, including especialy the transit system.

 

[Andrew3D]

Police yesterday praised the role of the cameras, whose expanded use in crime hot spots has stirred some protests about an encroachment on civil liberties.

What's the big deal? If you're not doing anything wrong you shouldn't care who's watching you out in public. With or without the police cams, we're captured everyday by private and government cameras already.

 

[ganjavih]

As long as no one's filming me in the privacy of my own home, they can film me all they want. How is it a privacy issue? Thousands of people can gawk at you while you're out... what difference does it make if they gawk at you with a camera?

 

[Bogtrotter]

On a public street, intersections, or in a store I have no problem with cameras. The only place I would take issue is in an office environment at the workplace, I would be very uncomfortable with that.

 

[BobBob]

Thousands of people can gawk at you while you're out... what difference does it make if they gawk at you with a camera?

Well, it's not really the same thing. Recorded video can theoretically be reviewed later to track your movements through various points in the city at differents points in time.

So, it's not so much like thousands of people randomly seeing you for an instant and forgetting about you. It's more like one person following you around everywhere you go and documenting it.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Has the average Brit become more paranoid due to all the cameras, or has he accepted that maybe, just maybe, Big Brother isn't watching *him*?

 

[BobBob]

I don't think the issue with most privacy advocates is that they think they are being watched. It is that once the Big Brother infrastructure is in place, all you have is the trust that Big Brother isn't watching you.

What happens if we should lose that trust at some point?

 

[Degnaw]

It's 1984! . . . then again, they don't have cameras in your home.

 

[Pep'rJack]

What happens if we should lose that trust at some point?

Are you suggesting that this trust remains intact at the moment?

The fact that this concept even needs to be explained to a group of intelligent, 'educated' adults is just jaw-dropping. It will never cease to completely shock, amaze and terrify me how many Good Citizens with 'nothing to hide' simply don't give a shit about living in a steadily developing no-one-is-watching-the-watchers authoritarian state. How any even quasi-sentient being could have watched the past ~6 years in the US and the UK and not be deeply troubled by this kind of thing is absolutely beyond my grasp at this point - the rigorous naïveté and breathtaking blind faith in power verges on outright delusional, willful ignorance. Orwell and Jefferson are spinning twin holes right through the core of the fucking earth in their graves.


Security Is Surveillance.

Privacy Is Omniscience.

Safety Is Observation.

Gods friggin' help us - this is the 'free world' in 2007?! Simply unbelievable - sleepwalking right into the abyss...

 

[alklay]

There is privacy legislation, common law and the Charter of Rights which protect our privacy. We do not have to rely on trust (thank goodness). And we are certain not living in an authoritarian state.

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

^^Exactly Pep'rJack. What happens when people take to the streets to protest or to engage in acts of civil disobedience? Suddenly the state now has hours of tape to help them catalog and track dissenters. What if, since the systems are in place after all, someone does decide that people should be watching the monitors all the time. Will it be a trained police officer at the very least who is monitoring people, or a rent a cop who's last job was security at a mall?

If you want safer streets, put police on the streets, with the people. A cop who is walking through the public and being seen by other people is far more likely to use wise judgment in assessing a situation that might seem questionable than someone sitting in front a monitor who is known only by those in the control room and lacks the context of being with the people. When a cop on the street makes a judgment to question or stop someone, other people are going to notice, and if other people believe the cop to be acting in an unfair manner, they can act as witnesses and speak up. A person in a control room who might decide to profile someone does not have to face that same scrutiny.

Public spaces are meant to be used by all citizens and the government(s) have a responsibility to keep them safe and comfortable for all citizens. It is one thing when the eyes on the street are another person, someone you can talk back to and say hi. It is quite another when it is a piece of electronic equipment that is simply recording and archiving your movements. Surveillance is not safety for all people, it is safety for some while making others uncomfortable by the invasion and monitoring of public spaces. In other words, fear mongers and those duped by the propoghanda win, civil libertarians lose.

And don't forget that many people live on these streets. If you were to ask most people how they would feel if someone put surveillance camera too watch their residential street, their driveway, their movements in and out of their house, you would probably get a far different response than suggesting it for 'somewhere else'.

Alkay: Perhaps not an authoritarian state, but, the Canadian record of spying on and tracking its citizens is still something that is of concern and unfortunately receives very little attention.

 

[Hydrogen]

Just curious, but for those of you who do not oppose cameras in public spaces, why would you not approve of cameras in the work place?

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

That's a moot point, as I don't think many workplaces these days do *not* have some sort of surveillance, either in the form of cameras or diligent IT departments ready to swoop down on Facebook slackers (I'm looking at you, Ontario government).