March 28, 2024

Cameras installed to deter crime in eastern Iowa city

DAVENPORT (AP) — Officials of a city in eastern Iowa are nearly ready to go live with cameras intended to deter crime as part of a pilot program that could expand to other parts of the city.

The cameras were installed on a half-mile stretch of road in Davenport about two weeks ago. They’re expected to be operating in a week.

The city bought the equipment for over $53,600 in November from Chicago-based CDW-G. It’ll record 24/7 so police can review live or past footage in the event of an incident.

“Someone is not going to be actively watching this live,” said Clay Merritt, capital budget analyst. “But if someone were to see an incident and call it in and they knew say it was a male wearing a red shirt with blue jeans in white Ranger, our police department could use that information as a tool to help identify that vehicle or person.”

Merritt said the last phase is to test its information technology infrastructure.

“We just need to do some internal testing on our server, firewall and our wireless connectivity,” Merritt said.

The cameras will also give the city’s traffic engineers access to the footage so they can do traffic counts.

Johnnie’s Meat Market co-owner Kent Dopler said it seems that problems have decreased on the street with the mere discussion of cameras.

“If anything, that might also help with city engineers and those that do studies to notice the traffic patterns,” Dopler said. “You’ve got potential problems and when there are problems, you’ll have record of it.”