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Media Tue Apr 21 2009
Police Computers Were All Down For 24 Hours. Newsworthy? Apparently Not
Oy. Josh Kalven at Progress Illinois:
On Saturday, the Chicago Police Department's computer systems went down for a full 24 hours, according to the Second City Cop blog, which described the entire police force "reverting to paper arrest reports, paper inventories, no fingerprints, no photographs, no anything." The malfunction also apparently caused the lock-ups to "overfill," as those arrested on petty offenses weren't being processed at the normal clip. It's reasonable to expect that a prolonged computer "blackout" of this sort would eventually start draining the streets of police officers as more and more of them are stuck filling out hard-copy forms they haven't touched in years (if ever).
Seems like a story worth reporting on, particularly considering it's been less than a month since calls were found to be "disappearing completely" from the city's 911 emergency system.
So can you find a single news article on it? I sure can't.
Blogs 1, newspapers zilch.
