More Surveillance Cameras Added in N.Y. City
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- Upward of 15 new surveillance cameras to help fight crime will be installed in the city's Bellevue neighborhood and two downtown parking garages.
Schenectady County Sheriff Dominic Dagostino said Monday that between $80,000 to $90,000 of his department's asset forfeiture money will fund the expansion of the Camera Crime Prevention Program, which currently includes about 100 cameras, most of them mounted on utility poles in high-crime areas in the city. The money was confiscated by the county's road patrol and the Drug Enforcement Task Force.
"The enhancement of this successful program will provide law enforcement with valuable evidence and investigative leads while acting as a deterrent to further crime in our neighborhoods," he said at a City Hall news conference.
Assistant Schenectady Police Chief Brian Kilcullen said the cameras have proved instrumental in helping investigators solve a recent bank robbery and a homicide a few years back.
The decision on where to mount the cameras next year in Bellevue will be made after conferring with Bellevue residents. One of them, John Polimeni, who attended the announcement in the rotunda, has lived in the quiet neighborhood since 1963. He said drug activity and other quality of life crimes are bringing down Bellevue.
"We want to quash it before it gets out of hand," said the 79-year-old Guilderland Avenue resident.
The parking lots to be equipped with the new cameras are behind Proctors and nearby on Broadway.
The sheriff was joined at the announcement by Acting Mayor Gary McCarthy and County Legislator Robert Hoffman, both of whom are Democrats running on Election Day on Tuesday. Dagostino, a Conservative Party member, was elected sheriff in 2009 with Democratic endorsement.
Copyright 2011 - Times Union, Albany, N.Y.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
