Crime & Safety
New HD Security Cameras Popping Up Around Brooklyn
The pilot program, funded by Eric Adams' office, will provide new video sources from multiple neighborhoods to the NYPD.
Pictured: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams speaks underneath two new security cameras in Crown Heights on Tuesday. Photos by John V. Santore
CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A pilot program is rolling out new high-definition security cameras around Brooklyn in a bid to help police catch suspects.
The office of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is delivering $2,500 grants to local community groups and business improvement districts to fund the cameras' installation.
Find out what's happening in Prospect Heights-Crown Heightsfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Rather than installing cameras where none existed before — a costly process, Adams said during a Tuesday press conference — the program is hooking cameras up to the existing security systems of local businesses.
Each new set of cameras, which record the street around them, will be registered with the NYPD, Adams said, helping police to more quickly collect useful footage of crimes and potential perpetrators.
Find out what's happening in Prospect Heights-Crown Heightsfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The Crown Heights Jewish Community Council has installed four cameras at the intersection of Albany Avenue and Union Street in Crown Heights.
Rabbi Eli Cohen, the Council's executive director, said Tuesday that the neighborhood has become safer in recent years, but added that the cameras will provide images clear enough to identify suspects' faces and license plates, helping to locate perpetrators like the individual who stabbed a Jewish man on Empire Boulevard in February.
Cameras have also been installed in, or are planned for, Coney Island, Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville, and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope.
Meredith Phillips, who heads the Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District — one of the groups receiving the $2,500 grants — said there are 180 businesses on Myrtle between Flatbush Avenue and Classon Avenue.
Phillips said the camera plan "elevates how important the small business community can be" in the effort to solve crimes.
Adams said that if the pilot program is successful, he hopes it can receive more funding and expand throughout the borough.
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