AURORA | Robbers, gangsters, gunmen and other offenders along Aurora’s East Colfax Avenue should prepare for their close-ups.
Aurora police are considering a pilot plan to beef up surveillance along Colfax with 15 new video cameras, a high-tech network to capture the action and send it to police headquarters. In addition, police might install several automated license-plate reading machines.
“The theory is we will catch the bad guys sooner, put them in jail and prevent them from committing more crimes,” Aurora police Chief Dan Oates said this week.
The proposal, which already has the backing of City Council’s Public Safety Committee, was supposed to go before the full City Council during a special session last week. But at the last minute, the measure was pulled from the agenda because some on council weren’t able to attend the meeting. The plan is expected to go before council next month.
In all, the plan will cost more than $300,000 to install and between $21,000 and $25,000 each year to maintain. If council approves the plan, police hope to have the new cameras up and running by the end of the year.
Oates said the new system is needed because some of the equipment police are currently using is outdated.
“What we have is hopelessly antiquated,” Oates said. “It’s generations old.”
Police are reluctant to say exactly where all the current cameras are located and where the new ones will be used. At least one of the department’s cameras on Colfax is mounted at Peoria Street and police said others are portable and can be used at different locations based on investigators’ needs. The cameras will be used in investigations from petty crime to major felonies.
But police say footage from the current cameras isn’t ideal. Not only is the footage not as clear as newer cameras would be, police say the current footage is harder to transmit to headquarters because it can’t be compressed before sending. The proposal calls for not only new cameras, but a $75,000 radio transmission system capable of quickly sending digital video from the cameras on Colfax to a computer at police headquarters.
Even with the dated system they have now, police routinely rely on surveillance images to help them during investigations — whether the images come from police cameras or other cameras run by private entities.
Last spring, for example, when a motorist was shot dead on East Montview Boulevard, investigators used images from a nearby private surveillance camera to identify a vehicle involved. No arrests have been made in the case, but police sent the images to the media in hopes of finding a lead.
Oates said those cameras are certainly useful for police, but they aren’t always ideal because they are designed to meet the security needs of a particular business, not to focus on an area police are especially interested in.
“These we would place in smart places to capture a field of view that is important to us,” Oates said.
In addition to the cameras, police plan to add automated license plate readers along Colfax at Yosemite Street, Peoria Street and Macon Street.
The devices, which are similar to those already in use on some patrol cars, can scan license plates and check them against a police database, looking for vehicles connected to suspects and determining which cars were in the area of a particular crime.
Oates said the devices are helpful because nearly all criminals use cars.
“If we capture a lot of data on plates and where they were at a particular time, that’s going to help us tremendously,” Oates said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado declined to comment for this story. But in the past, civil liberties advocates have argued against enhanced police surveillance, arguing that cameras and other devices can infringe on law-abiding citizens’ privacy.
Oates said he doesn’t anticipate that being a problem with the new plan, in part because the businesses and residents along Colfax have worked well with police in recent years to crack down on crime there.
“That’s a community that is already very vibrant and active with us as partners to reduce crime,” he said.
And, the cameras don’t equate to the type of blanket surveillance that some major cities rely on, he said.
“I’m not overly concerned that anyone is going to feel any sort of Big Brother presence,” he said.
For the officers who patrol Colfax everyday, enhanced surveillance cameras would be a welcome addition.
“For us it’s just another tool in the toolbox,” said Officer Gene Colwell, one the foot patrol officers who patrols Colfax from the police substation at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library.
Officers walk Colfax from Yosemite to about Havana and sometimes beyond each day, talking to business owners and residents and keeping an eye out for crime.
“We just try to remain visible,” Colwell said as he and Officer Bob Benner strolled along Colfax on a warm and quiet Tuesday.
Bigg Mike Smooth, who owns House of Ink Tattoo on Colfax, said he welcomes the cameras — as long as they are visible so crooks know they’re there.
“It’s the same thing as them walking around,” he said as he chatted with Colwell and Benner. “If they weren’t walking around, I think people would be doing a lot more dumb stuff.”
Much of what the foot patrol encounters along Colfax is typical of a bustling urban corridor — drinking in public, sleeping on park benches near the MLK Library, prostitution and loitering.
But police say the area also is a hub of gun crime, with 27 percent of firearms activity happening in the northwest corner of the city.
To combat that, the department is also considering gun shot recognition technology that police say could help officers respond to shootings earlier. Oates said that pricey technology is for a later date and the department is still evaluating different systems.
Still, some along Colfax aren’t sure expensive surveillance is the right approach to cleaning up Colfax, which despite improvements in recent years, remains an area marred by a rough reputation.
Crystal Gardner, owner of House of Flowers on Colfax, said the issue in the neighborhood isn’t so much the crime as it is the area’s bad reputation.
While she isn’t opposed to safety measures like more cameras and better lighting, Gardner said a focus on economic revitalization along Colfax would help more.
“In my opinion no one is going to feel safe down here until they revitalize the area,” she said. “They need to redevelop it, get more restaurants, more creative businesses, get more people down here.”
Reach reporter Brandon Johansson at 720-449-9040 or bjohansson@aurorasentinel.com
Cameras to monitor activity to spot crime sounds innocuous but it is one more tool that erodes individual rights and and begins to eliminate an individuals expectation of privacy. Where will it stop. The argument for cameras seems familiar.
As I recall in 1934 a country’s policy was to instituionalize the insane and mentally challenged, An innocuous idea that seemed reasonable and there was no cry from the citizens. In 1935 the same country said Gypsies and criminals should be remove from society, seemed reasonable and there was no cry from the citizens. In 1936 the contry’s policy was to remove communists from society because they were disrupting government and stopping economc growth, another reasonable idea and there was no cry from the citizens. In 1937 the county’s policy was to isolate Jews because they were the root of all of the other problems and the citizens said nothing. In 1938 the government of this country went after anyone that did not agree with official policy and there was no one to speak up.
Let’s have police officers do police work and cameras film movies.
Yeah Gene…you look awesome in your blues! Nice! If they’re not guilty they shouldn’t have anything to hide…put up as many cameras as possible!!!
This is not the beginning of a holocaust, as dascodger states. This is another way to combat crime in an area that has been saddled by a decreasing city budget. There were originally about 6 foot patrol officers years back. Now we are lucky to have 2. Foot patrol is needed in this area on a 24/7 schedule. Cameras are an awesome tool for investigators who only want to help the area flourish.