CCTV expansion bills head to Seattle City Council for final vote
Plans for more CCTV cameras in Seattle
Seattle is one step closer to getting more CCTV cameras installed across the city.
SEATTLE - Seattle City Council's Public Safety Committee passed a pair of bills on Tuesday that propose installing more CCTV surveillance across Seattle.
This is an expansion of a technology pilot program that is active in parts of the Chinatown-International District, Aurora Avenue and Third Avenue in downtown Seattle.
Big picture view:
The city believes closed-circuit television (CCTV) with the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) has been successful, saying it has played a role in 600 investigations and supported more than 90 criminal investigations in less than 60 days.
CB121052 and CB121053 would expand CCTV into parts of Capitol Hill, the Stadium District and the Garfield-Nova High School area, as well as give Seattle police the ability to watch the Seattle Department of Transportation traffic monitoring cameras from RTCC.
What they're saying:
Critics argue CCTV would not cut down on crime but will infringe on civil liberties.
"The ACLU of Washington is concerned by the proposal to expand CCTV across Seattle. Research shows that the use of CCTV cameras does not reduce violent crime or make our communities safer. Instead, this surveillance technology violates people's privacy and civil liberties, harms the communities it’s deployed in, and wastes police resources.
"Instead of using public funds on strategies that don't work, the City should invest in evidence-based solutions that do reduce crime, such as community-based gun violence prevention programs and neighborhood improvement projects."
- Tee Sannon, ACLU of Washington Technology Policy Program Director
After Amarr Murphy-Paine, 17-year-old student from Garfield High School, was murdered more than a year ago in one of the proposed expansion areas, his father weighed in about the CCTV expansion proposal:
"Until video footage of crimes are real deterrents, more cameras mean more eyes desensitized to violence. Having footage that doesn’t lead to consequences is just simple surveillance. As a parent of a victim of a crime caught on cameras with still no arrests, those cameras failed to keep Amarr safe or the community since there’s a killer still out there a whole year later.
"We don’t need more cameras we need more adults in the community with true intentions to change the environment. To me this is a cop out to doing the real frontline work this city needs. These kids need intentionality and trust. Not another eye from the distance making decisions remotely."
- Arron Murphy-Paine
The other side:
Seattle City Council said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not have access to the RTCC footage.
"It is solely with the detectives and the civilian analysts with the RTCC, and each search is logged and is audited by the OIG," said Councilmember Bob Kettle.
What's next:
The Seattle City Council is set to have a final vote on the bills in September.
The Source: Information in this story came from the Seattle City Council, the ACLU of Washington, Arron Murphy-Paine and FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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