Gadgetory

the new orleans mayor suggested an idea to curb crime in the big easy install a citywide system of security cameras that was six years ago now the camera system is plagued with problems only a fraction of the planned 1,000 cameras are up and working and of those many actually aren't working you'd think for about six point six million dollars you'd get a pretty good crime camera system they work in many other cities to hold down crime rates but here in New Orleans they don't work and the reason seems to have to do something with Louisiana politics the majority of those 250 cameras are not operational we have four four cameras and they're fairly high resolution so we have pretty much coverage of all the sidewalks there was also another armed robbery in our driveway a couple of years ago and it was about three women late at night I guess around one o'clock and a car came down the street and stopped and a man got out with a gun and the two of the women ran away from him but he grabbed one of the women and ripped her purse off of her we didn't really realize what had happened until we saw a lot of police out in the in our driveway so I went out and told them I said well we probably have this on on videotape so they solve that crime practically overnight we recognize that you know a NOPD eighth District here you know as a quite a job but the stretch then often and they just don't have enough you know foot soldiers and so we thought that you know we got a 4,000 residents we can beat it we can be part of their eyes too we can help them save cams a program came about to help from the French Quarter security task force to help NOPD with location of cameras that are throughout the French Quarter in the 8th district i went from canal street all the way up to Bourbon Street looking at where the location of all the cameras work and writing down those locations the contact information and stuff like that all the detectors have iPads and what they do is there's a link and they click on the link so if a robbery occurs in the next block they click on that location where they're at and they can pull up and it'll show it'll show dots of where all cameras are in that area then they can click on that particular dot in the area and see contact information on the owner see what what the best of time to get in touch with the owner is and something in some cases the cameras are actually it'll tell them where the cameras are pointing they'll know what footage they'll be obtaining when they get the camera alright 7 case was a promise nest and this happened is informed block of bourbon street gentleman was with his granddaughter went out to take some photos he says Blackmill came from behind snatch the phone i'll entertain took off running he couldn't give us the direction of flight we tried tracking the video but it's just too many people in Bourbon Street during that time we always use the videos one of the first things we look for and we're able to be on the scene get real-time information about who has video listening where it's at and Larry and positive for their tremendous job keeping it going in his snow snowballing into a real success for us thank God thank you I would hear them say okay we got video of this crime and we gave it to City Hall and we waited for the media to come to pick it up and they never came so I said a detective why don't we put that on YouTube and he said we've never done that before it he had to call a chief's office to get permission so once they did that and they got several thousand responses within the next week on that one they said maybe we should try it again and after it just become routine now camera is not going to lie the camera doesn't have to stand up in at the courthouse and and basically testify what you saw the cameras going to do it for you knowing that you're going to anywhere in the French Quarter you come that you're going to be on video has deterred a lot of crime you know I can't say that positive that that is but we do have a two percent reduction in violent crime this year compared to last year with less officers and you know it is strategies that we put in place but it's also the assistance of the camera systems you know I had to say that I believe that the knowing that you're going to be on camera is you come to the quarters as a big deterrent as far as the young guys who out here hustling they see the French Court as an easy mark you know this is where I can go and and they got sense enough to look at the reports of the TV cameras to see that these low resolution cameras that people are invested in their homes don't really identify anybody so you don't really have to be that much afraid about being caught on camera I think a lot of tourists think this is is real and it's safe and it's protected and people are not going to carry guns are not going to carry knives they're not going to walk up from behind push them to the side grab their iPhone and run off you know block later people recover and look up and they have no idea who's committed the crime against to me it's a security blanket you know people want to believe that that this is another crime prevention measure instead of trying to solve this problem of getting jobs for these kids raising up the wages for their parents they decide that what we will do will just arm ourselves against these invaders I believe that the cause of crime is the great social distance between the poor people and the rich people we can't separate that from how bad is the poverty situation in New Orleans has thirty eight percent of the population that lives below the poverty line sixty percent of our children live below the proper poverty line and I would say that that is the nexus in which we can discuss a whole question crime