Fresno Spends $1.3 million on Video Surveillance

Fresno Spends $1.3 million on Video Surveillance
Police Chief and Mayor are Impressed with the Results
By Mike Rhodes

After working on the project for over a year and spending $1.3 million on video surveillance equipment to spy on citizens, the mayor and Fresno Police Department held a press conference to say that. . . well, their cameras filmed a crime. Fresno mayor Alan Autry and Police Chief Jerry Dyer did not claim that the video surveillance stopped the crime from happening or even that it solved the crime. The mayor and police chief said the video was used in the investigation that led to the arrest of 25 year old Jamie Stanfield. The video, shown at the press conference, showed a shooting that took place near Belmont and highway 99.

Autry and Dyer used the opportunity to promote the video surveillance project. Dyer said they currently have 47 cameras up and operating in Fresno and that they plan to have 130 cameras in operation before the end of the year. The goal is to have 250 cameras in Fresno within the next two years.

Up until now, the cameras have not been actively monitored, but Dyer said that is about to change. He said the cameras will soon be monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by police cadets. When asked if there was any civilian oversight of the monitoring, as the policy manual on the video surveillance project demands, Dyer said “we are in the process, as a matter of fact we had a meeting about this a week and a half ago on identifying who that person might be.” He added, “we’re not there yet, I believe what we have had over the last six to nine months is really trying to refine this process.” The police have had this operation going for 1 ½ years and are out of compliance with the policy manual they agreed to implement. One of the conditions the City Council had on establishing the video surveillance project was that the FPD follow the policy manual.

The policy manual also directed the FPD to put up signs informing the public they are being spied on by video surveillance cameras. When I asked Dyer about the signs at a press conference six months ago, he said they had been ordered. There are still no signs up at the Manchester FAX (bus stop), along Parkside drive (where the video shown at the press conference was shot), or anywhere else where police cameras are actively watching the citizens of Fresno. Why has it taken a year and a half to get signs up? According to Dyer “the last thing we want to do is, for example on signage, is to put a sign at a particular location that this is being monitored, when in fact the camera is not working.”

In the question and answer part of the press conference Dyer was asked what the policy manual says about video surveillance and peaceful protests. Dyer was not sure and asked captain Al Maroney who helped set up the video surveillance project. Maroney was not sure either, so they asked me. I told them the manual says that they are not allowed to target peaceful protestors with video surveillance cameras. The manual says that if the cameras are in a location where a protest is being held, they don’t have to turn them off. On the other hand, it does not authorize them to position cameras so they will threaten and intimidate peaceful protestors.

Once there are cameras on every street corner being monitored 24/7, it won’t really matter if they are “targeting” peaceful protestors or not. Everyone who goes outside of their house will be monitored.

For more information and earlier articles about this issue, see: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/22/18299898.php