The damage comes as Bellevue expands automated speed enforcement in an effort to reduce serious and deadly crashes across the city.
“The reason the City of Bellevue is implementing speed safety cameras is because speed is a leading contributor to fatal and serious injury collisions, and it is what we hear the most about from our residents,” Bellevue Transportation spokesperson Jennifer Cook told KING 5.
The city installed eight cameras at four locations over the weekend of Aug. 14-16, with one camera monitoring each direction of travel.
A community member called 911 around 5 p.m. Sunday to report damage to cameras along 148th Avenue Northeast, between Northeast 13th and 10th places, Cook said. The city inspected all eight cameras Monday and discovered four had been damaged at two locations.
Both cameras along 148th Avenue Northeast were spray-painted and had their covers smashed. Cook said paint also got inside the units. The city is still determining whether some of the equipment can be cleaned or will need to be replaced.
Two cameras on Forest Drive Southeast, between Southeast 54th Place and Coal Creek Parkway, were also spray-painted.
One of those cameras has since been cleaned and returned to operation. The other needs a new cover. In all, three of the four damaged cameras still require repairs.
Verra Mobility, the city’s contractor for the speed-camera program, is responsible for repairing damage to the cameras under its contract with Bellevue, Cook said. That means taxpayers will not directly pay for the repairs. The total value of the damage is not yet known. Cook said Verra Mobility was still assessing the equipment.
How is the average person supposed to trust their government when there’s numerous accounts (and growing) of local government abusing the Flock cameras to spy and persecute civilians?
This isn’t teenager anarchists upset about these cameras. It’s the majority of those in the US.
Take this story for example. How are we ever supposed to trust that they’ll use cameras for anything but nefarious reasons?
Bellevue, as you may have noticed, is not in Florida. You get the local government you vote for, Florida got theirs, Bellevue has theirs, Seattle has its own, Bellevue is actually the least surveillance oriented of the three (although Seattle is once again moving in the right direction under Mayor Wilson, and deactivated all the cameras that were out up by Mayor Harrell ostensibly for the World Cup)
I never said this was about teenaged Anarchists, I said that grouping red light and speed cameras under the same umbrella as Flock cameras is the same kind of thinking as a teenage Anarchist. And I stand by that.
If you think cops in this area don’t act the same as cops in Florida in regard to this issue, you are sorely mistaken.
Most people distrust cameras in the hands of our government now. I can’t blame them regardless of how different these cameras are to Flock.
I think cops in this area have significantly less opportunity to act like the Florida cops do, because of local governments keeping them on a shorter leash. I’m certain they would if they could, that kind of person is the only kind of person who becomes interested in being a cop.
Well, I can and I do. And while I can respect your position, for the sake of consistency I’d better not ever catch anyone who supports their own privacy over the safety/lives of local pedestrians on here whining about Westerners choosing treats over other people’s lives.
It’s not really my position so much as I’m observing why people distrust cameras in the hands of our government.
You can disbelieve me or yell at people that they should trust them or how different they are, but that doesn’t change that people now distrust the government over this issue.
Not really observing so much as justifying. But hey I’m used to carbrains justifying any danger to pedestrians and cyclists as long as they get to drive as fast as they want with impunity.
You don’t know if I drive or not.
I don’t care if you drive. You’re prioritizing carholes over pedestrians, or at minimum justifying people who do. That’s enough to be certain you have a bad case of carbrain.
I’m not prioritizing anything. I’m making observations.