Nice Business You Have Here. It'd Be a Real Shame If Something Happened to It

That was, of course, the line that was used to extort money in protection rackets. Fail to pay your "street tax" and a garbage can might be accidentally tossed through your storefront window at 3 AM.

That's basically what the cops are now doing in Detroit:

Businesses pay between $4,000 and $6,000 to join Project Green Light, a program that allows police to monitor businesses’ video surveillance feeds in real time. The cost covers installation of high-definition cameras and lighting. There also is a monthly fee of up to $150 for cloud-based video storage.

In exchange, participating companies are given Priority 1 status on police dispatches — but some business owners who don’t participate feel they’re being treated like secondary citizens.
...
Police said they gave 40,471 special attention runs to Green Light locations in 2017 — an average of 111 per day. That represented about 6 percent of all officer runs, according to Detroit police data.

Priority 1 runs are given precedence over other emergency calls, although Craig said Green Light runs don’t trump violent crimes. But per the agreement with the city, if there are simultaneous calls from two business owners reporting similar crimes, police prioritize calls from the Green Light locations.

Smells a lot like an extortion racket to me.

(H/T)