Dallas crime cameras are eying downtown, Uptown, the Arts District, Deep Ellum and Jubilee Park, and now other neighborhoods want their own closeup.
Dallas police currently monitor more than 100 surveillance cameras around the city. The latest neighborhood to get the surveillance cameras is Uptown.
There are 11 cameras lining McKinney Avenue, with plans for even more.
“You can sit there and almost count the people on the patio eating,” Officer Carol Mazzola said.
With about 80 cameras, downtown Dallas is the most closely watched.
Dallas police credit the cameras for more than 1,300 arrests so far this year.
“We have other neighborhoods considering doing this, given the success of the program,” Lt. Tony Crawford said.
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Crawford expects Fair Park and White Rock Lake to be the next Dallas neighborhoods under 24-7 surveillance.
‘We have to be selective in what we do,” he said. “We want to try to concentrate on high-crime areas and public-interest areas.”
While it’s up to individual neighborhoods to pay for the cameras, Dallas police officers are the ones who monitor them.
“Obviously, if every neighborhood decided they wanted a camera, we don’t have the personnel at this time to do that,” Crawford said.
The Uptown cameras have been operational for about three weeks now. Police credit them for one arrest so far.
