Posts
A visit and apology from the New York Police Commissioner, a cheesecake, and countless man hours harassing an elderly couple are just some of the unexpected costs of an IT glitch.
Rose and Walter Martin were visited by the police 50 times in the last eight years because their address had been randomly entered during the testing phase of a new 'crime tracking' system. Having never correctly purged the information, the police were fed the same bad information each time and blindly followed their orders.
Rather than investing the money in better paid and well-trained officers and investigators, the city has found it much easier to just buy a computer that randomly spits out addresses for them to bust in on. I'll bet they call this system The Judge and it automatically prints out a signed search warrant with each address it provides.
Screaming "Police! Open Up!" at 80 year old folks rather than investigating crime...
THIS is whyNEWYORKERSpaytaxes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I like the fact you assume the police force could be 'well-trained'. Similar to the PA story, there's strange things in the water and I'm not sure the back end of the bell curve could ever get it right. NYC has the right idea- make the system idiot proof. The problem is with the software designer and those overseeing the cops. Which is why I'm not always a big fan of promote from within....if the pool of 'within' contains a large portion of not so bright candles, the probability of one of them making it to a dangerous position of power is pretty high. Uncomfortably high. And this story exemplifies this point. Some boss didn't catch this 7 years ago?
Post a Comment