The Newport Police Department has received a Port Security Grant for $81,000 to expand its citywide camera program.
The city plans to break down Riverboat Row into five zones to place the cameras. Riverboat Row is the area that runs near the Ohio River, General James Taylor Park and Newport on the Levee.
“We’ve been able to use our citywide cameras to serve our residents, giving us opportunities to really take care of a lot of good cases,” Newport Police Chief Chris Fangman said. “A lot of evidence comes from these cameras.”
Fangman said the cameras will primarily be used to monitor traffic accidents and to investigate crimes.
“The tragedy on 11th Street (Bridge) with a bicyclist that was a city camera that caught that vehicle, and our staff tracked down over 400 vehicles before we found that vehicle,” he said. “So the cameras have proven very successful for our investigations for evidence purposes.”
Newport Commission Beth Fennell asked if the cameras the department is purchasing could do traffic monitoring.
“It seems so prevalent throughout the whole region, maybe the country, they’re just blasted through stop signs,” she said.
The cameras they plan to purchase with the grant are not as advanced as License Plate Recognition cameras, which are more commonly used to enforce traffic laws, though Fangman said the cameras can be used to enforce running stop signs.
“The cameras that a lot of people associate with traffic enforcement are called LPR cameras they are very expensive,” Fangman said. “We have been involved in partnerships with Cincinnati and other agencies in utilizing them in the past but to keep them going is very expensive.”
The city has cameras on all ingress and egress points, and Fangman said they can install many more cameras under the program they are using instead of the License Plate Recognition system. He said they had put a License Plate Recognition camera on the 4th Street Bridge as a pilot program and said the camera could capture traffic monitoring, license plates, and high rates of speed.
“I think this is a very good step forward to ensuring the future public safety of our citizens,” Newport Commissioner Mike Radwanski said.
