Buffalo takes new anti-crime camera system live

Apr. 23--A police officer watched the corner of Sycamore Street and Goodyear Avenue, keeping an eye out for trouble. She also was watching the corner of East Lovejoy and Gold streets. And the intersection of Fillmore and Jewett avenues. And she did it all from Police Headquarters in downtown Buffalo.

Buffalo's new anti-crime camera system is up and running, and police are now monitoring 43 locations across the city from a high-tech surveillance monitoring room.

"We will be one of the elite camera systems in the United States," Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson told reporters Tuesday as he joined Mayor Byron W. Brown in showcasing the technology.

For the last eight months, crews have been installing and testing cameras in neighborhoods throughout Buffalo. By the end of the year, more than 100 cameras will be placed in high-crime areas, business districts and in locations deemed important to homeland security.

City officials unveiled the system's nerve center -- a monitoring room that includes a wall covered with video screens and several surveillance stations equipped with monitors.

With the twist of a joystick, a camera stationed downtown zoomed in on a vehicle several hundred yards away, providing a clear view of the license plate number.