Aug 8, 2008 6:52 pm US/Central
Street Cameras Will Keep Watch Over RNC Crowds
(WCCO)
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Officers will watch the live feeds 24 hours a day during the Republican National Convention.
CBS
St. Paul has put the final touches on 45 new cameras that police will use to monitor the downtown area around the Xcel Energy Center during the Republican National Convention. The cameras are fixed at most intersections near the arena and fed to the St. Paul Police Headquarters.
Officers will watch the live feeds 24 hours a day during the Republican National Convention. A public website with live video of the feeds will be up and running within the next two weeks.
"There'll be some blind spots here and there, but all of the traffic corridors and many of the areas around those buildings will be in plain view," said St. Paul Police Sgt. Jack Serier. He said a team has been working on the project for 1 1/2 years.
The $2 million system is funded with money from the Department of Justice to the Republican Convention. All of the cameras will stay in St. Paul after convention visitors leave, though some of them will be moved to other parts of downtown.
"It's been an interest of downtown business folks, the people who live downtown as well as the police department. This was just a great opportunity to start that process," said Serier.
The project is part of a much larger one to put cameras all over St. Paul. Serier believes people have come to expect the use of cameras as technology advances.
Already, there are cameras along the proposed light rail line along University Avenue. That project was funded with federal transportation funds. In October, St. Paul police will begin installing cameras within one mile of the Mississippi River using a port grant.
St. Paul has also trained members of its mobile field units to use camcorders during the RNC. Protesters have trained at least 70 people to carry camcorders, too.
"It's very important that we have evidence showing police misconduct if it does happen," said Rachael Bengston, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild.
She said a group of legal observers will log the video and keep it in case of any legal action.
"We hope that that won't take place here in St. Paul," she said. "If it does, we want to be there to document it to make sure that people's medical bills and things like that get paid for."
Recordings of the St. Paul cameras will be kept for 10 days, but Serier said it's the live video that's most important to get information to officers on the ground.
"It's just another tool for our toolbox as we're doing our work," he said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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