Crown Heights Community Leaders Want More HD Surveillance Cameras on City Streets

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — The city or state should invest $1 million to dramatically expand the network of high-definition security cameras currently active in Crown Heights, community leaders said Thursday.

In early July, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Rabbi Eli Cohen unveiled three of the new cameras at the intersection of Albany Avenue and Union Street.

The cameras had been installed using a $2,500 grant from Adams' office, and their location on a busy commercial street was chosen in consultation with the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council and local business leaders.

The cameras were connected to the existing security systems of local businesses, reducing their cost, official said, while their location was made known to the police.

And about a month later, Adams explained Thursday, police used their footage to help apprehend a suspect following an area robbery.

HD cameras in Crown Heights.

According to Adams' office, the cameras are already in, or are coming to, business strips in Coney Island, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Brownsville and Park Slope.

But the borough president said Thursday that with a $1 million investment, the system could cover all of Crown Heights, as well as parts of Prospect Heights, Bed-Stuy and Lefferts Gardens.

He also said he supports an expansion of the system into all of the borough's "highly used" corridors, adding that interested neighborhoods should contact his office.

"We can expedite the process if we have an infusion of dollars from our city or state," Adams said.

Evoking the so-called "ring of steel" formed by a phalanx of similar security cameras in lower Manhattan, Adams said, "We want a ring of steel around the borough of Brooklyn."

Thursday's call came one day before the 25th anniversary of the so-called "Crown Heights riots," a three-day period of violent clashes between black and Jewish residents in the neighborhood.

Adams said the cameras help create an environment of lawfull behavior by preventing individuals wishing to commit crimes from being "hidden within the crowd."

Rabbi Eli Cohen also linked the cameras to the legacy of the riots.

"When we have a safer community, it helps everyone," he said.

Pictured at top: Rabbi Eli Cohen and Eric Adams stand in front of a wanted poster Thursday featuring HD photos of crime suspects. Photos by John V. Santore