HPD chief recommends citywide surveillance cameras

With no easy solution to HPD's officer shortage, Police Chief Harold Hurtt has suggested a new way to fight crime: cameras. Hurtt's idea is to place surveillance cameras at crime hotspots like malls, apartment complexes and areas with high rates of prostitution and drug use. The cameras would feed directly to the police department and would be similar to the red-light cameras the city is planning to install at intersections. Similar surveillance systems have drawn criticism in other cities — most recently Dallas, which announced a plan last month to install 34 cameras downtown. But Hurtt poo-poohed concerns over invasions of privacy:

"Wherever you go in a city this size you're going to be on video camera or tape at least 12 times a day. If you just think about it, you go to a convenience store, you get gas, you go to the bank, you drive down the street in front of people's houses where motion sets off the cameras, you're already on camera. I know a lot of people are concerned about big brother. My response to that is, if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"

Hurtt said it'll be cheaper to install the cameras and monitor them from a central location than it would be to put officers in all the crime hotspots. He also suggested homeowners who call police to their homes a lot might have to install cameras as well. It hasn't yet been reported how many officers will monitor the cameras or how officers will be dispatched when a camera catches a crime in progress.