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NEWSWIRE
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Municipal surveillance provides 'evidenciary value' |
By Rhianna Daniels - 08.19.2008 
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PITTSBURG, Calif.--For the city of Pittsburg, its continually growing camera system has provided police with much needed visual evidence to solve crimes, and that is enough for city officials to deem the installation a success.
The city first implemented five IP-based Sony cameras three years ago, but since that time the system has continued to grow as the city is allocates additional funding. Today. there are 50 cameras operational with more additions planned for the future.
"The primary factor is that the cameras delivered on what our vendor [Odin Systems] said they are going to deliver," Capt. William Zbacnik said. "They have provided evidenciary value to us. There was a girl that claimed she was sexually assaulted in the park but it turned out she was late for curfew, knew she was going to get in trouble and made this rape story up." The police were able to determine details of the case by looking at video footage from the park.
The cameras cover major intersections, parks and school areas, but plans will extend coverage to the harbormaster's building and other downtown areas.
Zbacnik said the project started out with the revitalization of the city's downtown -- an area that runs north to south and ends at the shore -- and "as a result of this multiyear project we wanted to research the field as far as looking at the potential of a wireless camera system."
A wireless system fit the city's needs, Zbacnik said, because fiber would have been very expensive to implement.
"Although [fiber] is good typically when city is being developed, it is not after the fact so to speak," he said.
Wireless surveillance systems continue to pop up around the country. Alan Chen, product manager with Sony, this is indicative of a growing trend that "maybe started four or five years ago when the city of New Orleans deployed quite a large number of cameras. We have seen quite a few of these municipalities starting to adapt the capability of their infrastructure and the products are evolving to such as point that it is easy to deploy."
When news of the city's surveillance system hit the mainstream, the ACLU was quick to question the area's motivation. Zbacnik said one of the reasons the organization didn't believe cameras were necessary is because reports surfaced that said cameras do no reduce crime.
"While that may be the case, but it is relative to what is in the camera view," he said. "We measure the success of our cameras in other ways. We've had kids fighting in front of a school and break a windshield, and we arrested them. The mother of one of the kids came in and said police beat him up when they took him into custody. Then we showed her that he wasn't beat or roughed up. Had she had made a personnel compliant, nearly 60-70 man hours would have been put into that particular investigation. We see that as a success."
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| SECURITY DIRECTOR NEWS INFO CENTER |
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