Mississippi City Plans Summer Expansion, 50 ‘New Crime’ Cameras With Resident Support

DEBARYLIFE – In honor of Crime Camera Participation Month in May, the people of Mississippi are being urged by a new website to sponsor, buy, or register fifty new cameras for their neighborhood.

The crime camera program will be available to Miss-Lou residents via www.RiverCitiesCCP.com. They can register an existing camera, purchase a camera, or sponsor a camera.

To announce the start of a campaign to install more Project NOLA cameras—which have cloud storage and are accessible in real-time by law enforcement agencies to aid in the investigation of crimes—city of Natchez officials invited residents and law enforcement partners in Adams County, Vidalia, Louisiana, and Concordia Parish.

The City of Natchez was to receive a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to improve public safety through the establishment of a community crime camera program. This announcement was made in February 2020, nearing the end of the administrations of Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell and Police Chief Walter Armstrong.

Grant funding of about $150,000 was provided by the Gulf States Regional Law Enforcement Technology Assistance Initiative.

Under the previous government, this grant was requested and approved a few years ago. “We never got the cameras actually up because of COVID, a change of administration, and other delays,” Mayor Dan Gibson stated. “The program was able to be restarted just a year ago, and now we need citizen participation.”

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Over the course of this summer, Gibson stated, the crime camera initiative aims to install over fifty more cameras in high-crime neighborhoods. According to Gibson, these cameras will probably be installed inside the Natchez-Adams County region due to population density and necessity. In order to accomplish this, he continued, the city needs input from the community to determine the areas that most require cameras.

Mayor Buz Craft addressed the inhabitants of the Town of Vidalia who lived nearby, saying, “Vidalia residents do not need to try and get one of the 50 that Natchez is trying to get.” We will be adding more even though we are doing well.

We’re aiming to install these cameras in key locations around our neighborhoods, and we won’t force the public to do it. In order to get these cameras operational, our IT group has put a lot of effort into installing the fiber throughout the municipality.

The program offers several options for community people to get involved.

To help the city create a directory of camera sites and improve the efficiency of criminal investigations, they can register the cameras they now have.

They can also purchase cameras to have installed at their homes or businesses. These cameras will be accessible by both city and county law enforcement.

“Some of our most dire cases have been solved using camera footage. It prevents people from being involved in things they otherwise would not want to be involved in.

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Plus, if we have camera footage, there is no denying that the person did the crime,” Natchez Police Chief Cal Green said. “The more cameras we are able to get up, the better we will be able to police crime in our community.”

The federal grant also enables the city to provide crime cameras at no cost to residents in high-crime neighborhoods. Approximately 45 cameras will be given out. This includes installation and two years of fully monitored cloud storage, officials said.

Requests for the grant-funded cameras can be submitted via the website www.RiverCitiesCCP.com.

Finally, residents can “adopt a camera” to have installed on a home or business in a high-crime neighborhood, officials said.

“We encourage everyone to go to that site,” Gibson said. “The deadline is May 31. We have to have all requests by that date.”

Green said not everyone who requests a camera will receive one. Only those who are in an area of need will be considered. Also, the location must have WiFi and electricity for a camera to be installed.

Partners in this community crime camera program include the City of Natchez and Town of Vidalia with the Natchez and Vidalia police departments, the Adams County and Concordia Sheriff’s Offices, Project NOLA, Envisage Research and Analytics, and eSouth Technologies.