For the third time this month, Metro Police Department's vaunted AI surveillance network experienced what officials are calling "unexpected system anomalies." And for the third time, those anomalies coincided with events that later proved significant to ongoing criminal investigations.
At a press conference Thursday, Police Chief Martinez dismissed suggestions that the failures were anything other than technical issues. "We're dealing with complex systems. Glitches happen," he said, visibly uncomfortable under questioning from reporters.
But a pattern is emerging that's difficult to explain away as coincidence.
The Timeline
March 8: Surveillance cameras across the Eastern District went offline for 47 minutes. During that window, evidence later showed, critical documents were extracted from the offices of three officials now facing federal corruption charges.
March 12: The department's facial recognition system experienced a "database synchronization error" lasting two hours. During this period, someone — presumably TerrorByte — infiltrated and disabled security systems at three properties owned by the Rodriguez crime syndicate.
March 16: All monitoring systems at Marcus Rodriguez's residence failed simultaneously moments before the crime lord was found dead. The outage lasted exactly 12 minutes.
"In twenty years of IT security, I've never seen 'glitches' this precise. These aren't malfunctions — they're surgical strikes on the surveillance infrastructure."
— Anonymous Metro PD IT Specialist
The Official Response
When pressed about the suspicious timing, Chief Martinez insisted the department was "conducting a thorough internal review." He declined to comment on whether investigators had identified any signs of external intrusion.
Sources within the department, speaking on condition of anonymity, paint a different picture. "Everyone knows it's TerrorByte," one officer told Lion News. "The brass knows it too. They just can't admit that our billion-dollar surveillance system gets bypassed whenever he wants."
Nexus Corp, which provides the surveillance technology under a $400 million contract with the city, released a statement defending their systems as "industry-leading" and "virtually impenetrable." They attributed the failures to "environmental factors and operator error."
A Deeper Question
For many observers, the more interesting question isn't how TerrorByte is defeating the surveillance systems — it's why the systems only seem to fail when something important is happening.
"Think about what this means," says technology ethicist Dr. Marcus Webb. "Someone with the ability to blind the entire city's surveillance network is choosing to use that power only at specific moments, for specific purposes. That's not terrorism — that's precision."
The implications are profound. If TerrorByte can selectively disable police surveillance at will, the entire premise of the Smart City initiative — that constant monitoring will keep citizens safe — falls apart.
"The city spent hundreds of millions on a surveillance system that apparently has an off switch," noted City Council member Diana Reyes. "And someone else is holding the remote."
Metro PD has announced plans to hire additional cybersecurity consultants. No timeline was provided for when the "glitches" might be resolved.
