Though crime seems to be down in Asbury Park, does anyone know the
status in AP?
Newark surveillance cameras yielding results
7/1/2008, 3:17 p.m. EDTBy DAVID PORTER The Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) The armed robbery was startling in its
efficiency: A gun-toting man approached a group of youths outside a
public housing project and, within seconds, fled to a waiting car.
With nearly equal swiftness, the man and three alleged accomplices
were arrested blocks away.
"That most likely would not have happened if not for our cameras,"
Mayor Cory A. Booker said Tuesday at the unveiling of a new
operations center where police monitor the 109 surveillance cameras
that cover an eight-square-mile area where much of the city's violent
crime is concentrated.
In a city where the specter of violence is a constant and many
residents hesitate to cooperate with police for fear of reprisal,
each camera is a silent witness that cannot be intimidated.
Booker and Police Director Garry J. McCarthy said they are hoping the
cameras also make criminals think twice about what they do in public.
"People are going to realize that public housing complexes and major
streets are watched 24 hours a day, and that they can't do that kind
of behavior," Booker said.
To illustrate his point, Booker showed a surveillance video of a
street corner where two people were shot to death earlier this year.
A man is seen standing on the sidewalk, flashing a gun and putting it
back in his pants; the footage allowed police to arrest the man,
allegedly a major figure in the Bloods street gang. Prosecutors are
seeking to have the man prosecuted at the federal level, according to
McCarthy.
"Hopefully we'll make him into a poster child for not carrying
firearms, because there are a lot of people who know who this guy
is," he said.
The operations center, located in the police department's
communications building, features about two dozen video monitors,
some of which display images from up to 16 different cameras.
The cameras scan the streets in a preset pattern; officers who
monitor the video watch for anomalies a person stopping in his
tracks, a group of people congregating and then are able to use a
computer to control the camera's direction and zoom in or out
depending on what is happening on-screen.
The plan to install the cameras was under way a year ago but was
given greater urgency after the execution-style slayings of three
college-bound friends in a schoolyard on Aug. 4.
The bulk of the cost has been covered by the Newark Community
Foundation, a nonprofit formed just two weeks before the schoolyard
killings. Prudential and Continental Airlines were among major donors.
The first 32 cameras were installed by the end of September, and
Booker said the 109 cameras currently in use mark the end of the
first phase of a project that will eventually include a gunshot
detection system as well as surveillance cameras to catch people
running red lights.
Homicides have decreased markedly in Newark in 2008 27 were
committed through June 15, compared to 43 a year ago and rapes also
have decreased during the same period, from 40 in 2007 to 25 in 2008,
according to statistics published by the Newark Police Department.
Aggravated assaults and robberies have experienced rises of 1 and 4
percent, respectively.
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