SAN PABLO (KRON) - 

 

Not only do the cameras record, but they also automatically move and focus in on crimes. According to police, since they began installing cameras in 2011, gun violence has fallen 74 percent. In a story you’ll only see on KRON4 on Tuesday, Haaziq Madyun shows us how the high-tech cameras work.

“We were investigating where the suspects walked up to the victim and shot them in broad daylight,” San Pablo police Lt. Brian Bubar said. “Using the image that we captured on our surveillance cameras, we were able to broadcast this information to surrounding patrol officers.”
 

A short time later, the shooting suspects were identified and arrested. The video was recorded on one of the San Pablo Police Department’s 134 surveillance cameras. The city recently approved $2.6 million to install more eyes in the sky.

“Well, we are going to have 194 situational awareness cameras and 72 ALPR cameras throughout the whole city,” Lt. Bubar said.

 

ALPR is specific to license plate capturing, says Dustin Saylor, who is the CEO of Odin Systems. That is the company handling the surveillance camera installation on Contra Costa County freeways. The technology will work with the city’s gunshot detection system.
 

“Gunshot happens on the freeway, the pan, tilt, zoom camera on the gantry freeway sign would then pan, tilt, zoom to the geo-reference of where the gunshot went off,” Saylor said. The system will give law enforcement immediate surveillance at or near the scene of a shooting.

“We are only 2.6 square miles, so the people who are coming into San Pablo committing crimes within our community, then traveling out of San Pablo, we are going to be able to capture them as them as they leave our city or come into our city,” Lt. Bubar said.
 

Before moving forward with installing the additional cameras, the San Pablo Police Department received input from community members.
 

Esther Ioane manages Monte Vista Senior Apartments, a location targeted by auto burglars in the past.
“With my cameras and their cameras, I am sure they will apprehend these people,” Ioane said.

San Pablo police officials anticipate the installation of the new cameras will be finished by the end of 2018.