Mysterious New Orleans "anti-crime" camera emblazoned with NOPD logos outside surveillance contractor's house is disavowed by NOPD

New Orleans is festooned with police cameras, the legacy of a secret partnership with the surveillance contractor Palantir, which used New Orleans as a covert laboratory for predictive policing products.

One such camera was wired into a public light pole outside 6119 Vicksburg. It looked like other Real-Time Crime Monitoring Center-connected cameras, and was emblazoned with NOPD logos. But when the cops tried to pull the footage from the camera after a car break-in, they discovered that it wasn't connected to their network, and no one knew where it came from (not even the private entity that does neighborhood security, the Lakeview Crime Prevention District).

One possible clue: 6119 Vicksburg is down the street from the former home of Jeff Burkhardt (he recently signed over the house to his wife in a separation agreement), and the victim of the car break-in believed that the camera was Burkhardt's. Burkhardt is vice president and chief operations officer for Active Solutions, LLC, a surveillance contractor that installs cameras for the city of New Orleans.

Burkhardt's responses to questions about the camera were not reassuring. First he told The Lens's reporters that he had no comment because it was "fake news." Then he said he didn't know who the camera belonged to. Then he said he wouldn't comment. Then he said that neither he nor his company were involved with the camera's purchase or installation, stating "My company had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever." But when asked whether he "had anything to do with the camera being there" he switched back to "no comment." Burkhardt's wife, Samantha Burkhardt, told The Lens she would call them back with comment, but did not. Read the rest