Police say the crime rates on Jasper Avenue aren't worse than anywhere else in the city. But, they are still setting up three surveillance cameras to remind revelers to take it easy.
Bar owners along the strip say they like the idea. The cameras, going up along Jasper between 108th and 109th Streets, will be there during a three-month trial period.
“Police presence is going to help, and cameras are going to help,” says Mike Sainchuk, “Our security also helps. We’re trying to be proactive to keep problems minimal.”
Large signs are in place to let people know they are being watched.
Okay, now take a look at these links:
Officers were called to a drug store near 117 Street and 104 Avenue yesterday afternoon, where a man had been acting strangely. He would stand near female customers, put a cell phone on his foot, and snap a quick picture between their legs with the phone before moving away. He was arrested without incident.
It's what skeptics have suspected all along, and now it's official: Cameras don't catch crooks. Detective Chief Inspector Mike Neville, head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office of Scotland Yard, told a conference in London, England, this week that the project of plastering the city with closed-circuit TV cameras (CCTV) has been "a fiasco."
So naturally we're going to try this out on Jasper Avenue. Because hey, its important to look like something's being done.
