CAMERAS ARE HELPING TO FIGHT CRIME, INDY POLICE SAY

Anti-Terror Funds Paid for 21 'Eyes'; City Will Install Dozens More in '08

Cameras positioned at intersections across Indianapolis, paid for
with anti-terrorism dollars, are helping police catch suspects
committing everyday crimes.

The city's year-old crime-fighting cameras have captured at least
three drug deals on city streets, officials say.

Twenty-one cameras are in operation on utility poles across the city.
By the end of 2008, 67 will be up and running, many of them mounted
near Lucas Oil Stadium. About 20 will be deployed in high-crime areas.

"We all want the bad guys to know that public safety is looking,"
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief John Ball said. "If
they are out there doing it and there's a camera close, we're
probably going to see it."

Citing security concerns, Ball declined to provide a list of all of
the camera locations.

The cameras are topped with flashing blue lights. Most are positioned
near Conseco Fieldhouse, the RCA Dome and government buildings,
including the Statehouse and the City-County Building.

The system's brain is a high-tech control room tucked away in the
basement of Marion County's Metropolitan Emergency Communications
Agency, 47 S. State Ave. Up to three officers sit in front of more
than a dozen monitors and watch the people, cars and occasional birds
that flit into a camera's view.

"It's not cops and robbers, chasing people down," Ball said, "but the
officers that work in here perform the same type of observation for
suspicious behavior, and they can do so unobtrusively."

The control room looks like a showroom at a high-end electronics
store, with three huge TV screens and two slightly smaller TVs
mounted on the wall, and 12 flat-screen monitors at three computer
workstations.

"(Working here is) like playing a video game in some ways," Ball
said. "(Younger officers) really take to the new technology very well."

The control center and most of the cameras were funded by a $1
million Homeland Security grant. Officials are using $400,000 in cash
seized from criminals to purchase more cameras and equipment.

Each permanently mounted camera costs about $14,000; the movable
cameras cost about $12,000 each, officials said. Similar cameras have
been widely used in more than a dozen cities, including Boston,
Dallas and Los Angeles.

In October, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced plans to add 100
cameras to the streets, bringing that city's total to 559.

"When we first began to install them, many people were skeptical. But
the community began to see their worth as they effectively dispersed
wrongdoers who knew their activities were being recorded," Daley said
in a statement announcing the new cameras.

Chicago neighborhoods with cameras operating for more than six months
reported a 30 percent decrease in crime and a 60 percent drop in drug
incidents.

"People want these cameras in their neighborhoods," Daley said. "A
camera is the next best thing to having a police officer on the street."

Many Indianapolis residents, especially those who live in high-crime
neighborhoods, are embracing the system.

"I'm not concerned about Big Brother," Near East Side Community
Organization board member Jerry Shepherd said. "I'm worried about
drug dealers shooting it out and another child being killed on the street."

One of the first cameras in the city was deployed on the Eastside, at
Rural and Michigan streets. Shepherd would like to see more cameras
in the neighborhood.

"They seem to have reduced the crime in that area," he said. "You
can't just have cameras. You have to have businesses watch out for
their customers. You have to have neighbors that watch out for each other."

Marion County Sheriff's Lt. Kris Layton, who spends most of his
workday looking for something suspicious on the screens, said the
cameras have made an impact on criminals.

"We do see the criminals that were arrested in the past come back to
the location, but they are trying to be smarter," Layton said. "They
kind of taunt us at times, showing their money, then walking around
the corner."