Police want better surveillance cameras in high-crime areas

A Metro Nashville Police Department surveillance camera might go unnoticed if not for the flashing light, a kind of Blue Light Special on crime deterrent.

The 30-camera system may seem like Big Brother watching every public move in hot-spot areas. But for now, police say, it’s more about preventing crime in those areas and providing evidence if a crime does occur than just keeping an eye on passers-by.

When Central Precinct Cmdr. Damian Huggins mentioned at a recent Compstat meeting — the department’s weekly meeting where commanding officers report and review crime statistics — that some crucially placed cameras weren’t working during the CMA Music Festival, and therefore couldn’t have provided additional evidence in the event crimes had occurred under their watch, it was his way of pointing out that the system could be better.

“I’m wanting to try and get a centralized monitoring station and do some upgrading of our cameras,” Huggins said, aware that tight budgets will delay any proposed plans. “What I would like to see is an integrated system for central monitoring for our cameras.”

It isn’t that there’s a problem with the camera system now, he said.

“That would be like me saying, ‘I have a problem with my car, because it’s a 2008 and I would really like a 2010 because they’ve got a lot of newer stuff on them.’ I don’t have a problem with my car, I just want the newer stuff.”

Huggins’ vision for the Central Precinct is to implement a more high-tech system that would allow cameras placed atop poles in high-crime areas to link into a centralized location where low-duty personnel — reassigned for injury or administrative reasons — could monitor the cameras in real time.

Now officers monitor cameras as needed by parking within sight of them and linking to them wirelessly to review footage captured by the camera. If a more serious crime is captured on camera, detectives ask that the hard drive of the camera be pulled right away and preserved for evidence.

But the cameras are susceptible to power outages brought on by Mother Nature and construction schedules, and some of the old cameras’ DVR systems don’t reset properly after power is restored.

“If a camera goes out, we have to reset it and make sure it’s recording,” Huggins said. “In the past we have had incidents where it didn’t record, but that would be just like anybody’s security system.”

Sgt. Tony Blackburn, head of Central’s detective division, said officers check the cameras every week or two to make sure they’re monitoring properly. To determine if a camera is up and recording, an officer must come within view of it and wirelessly link to it.

Cameras are also limited as to what and how much they can capture.

The cameras’ DVR hard drives currently loop, or record over themselves, after a period of several days or roughly a week, depending on a specific camera’s hard drive capacity. Also, they capture only 30 degrees of a 360-degree view at a given time.

Nonetheless, their blue-light presence works to deter while their glass lenses are occasionally in the right spot at the right time.

Blackburn said it’s seldom that officers, following a crime, go to check a camera’s hard drive only to find it hadn’t been recording. “Most of the time we have the footage. It may not have what we were looking for … but we’ve had good luck with them.”

In 2006, police arrested two men after they allegedly pushed a homeless and sleeping Tara Cole into the Cumberland River, where she drowned. Cameras didn’t catch the crime in progress, but two men were caught on camera and later identified by their clothing.

On another occasion, police pulled over suspects in a shooting near Second Avenue and Broadway. With the suspects in custody at the traffic stop, another detective watched the instant replay and determined that, yes, the shooters drove that car and, yes, they wore those clothes so, yes, the shooters were in custody.

Last year, a Metro Development and Housing Agency grant added 10 cameras to the Central Precinct arsenal but with the specific stipulation that the cameras be positioned in hot spots around the Nashville Rescue Mission, a move Blackburn said worked.

“Since we’ve put these overt cameras up there with the blue lights flashing, the number of incidents that take place around there have significantly been reduced … . They’re definitely doing their job preventing crime,” Blackburn said.

Overall, Huggins said Central Precinct reduced its crime numbers by 17 percent last year, which led Mayor Karl Dean to recognize it as “Precinct of the Year” at a ceremony last week.

“We’re stomping big numbers,” Huggins said. “It’s because we’re paying attention to things, but it’s also because we’re saying, ‘Hey, how are we going to get better tomorrow?’ ”