The police had allowed me to fly with them so that I could see the world from their perspective. Through its aerial patrols, the division has uniquely unfettered access to a fundamentally different experience of Los Angeles, one in which the city must constantly be reinterpreted from above, in real time, with the intention of locating, tracking and interrupting criminal activity. This also means that the police are not only thinking about Los Angeles as it currently exists. — New York Times
"Their job is to anticipate things that have yet to occur — not just where criminals are, but where and when they might arrive next. They patrol time as well as space. In this sense, although it has been in continual operation for the past 60 years, the division has much to tell us about policing the cities of the future."
In a fascinating excerpt from his forthcoming book A Burglar's Guide to the City, Geoff Manaugh relates his experience with the LAPD on their helicopter patrols of the city. "Cities get the types of crime their design calls for," he writes. And the sprawl of Los Angeles demands, and facilitates, a policial gaze from above.
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2 Comments
Interesting concept... kickass movie.
The problem with Manaughs writing is echoed in this detached anti-humanist high tech moment we are living in. Like looking down from a helicopter might tell us something, or nothing really, just like a diagrammatic sci-fi concept, or data points on a map, that lack any humanity and thus tells us very little. The interviews with pilots fill the page but it's a swirling boring narrative that goes nowhere in love with its own cleverness.
Really, you are saying that crime is different in NY vs. LA? You don't say!!
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