Blango Pitches Crime Cam

Besieged by murder-weary constituents, Charles Blango offered a new idea: Use new traffic-light cameras at high-crime intersections like Division and Dixwell to help catch not just red-light runners but perhaps thieves and even killers.

Blango (pictured with city Reentry Initiative’s Amy Meek, left, and Tirzah Kemp) offered that idea at Tuesday night’s Newhallville Community Management Team’s monthly meeting at the police substation on Winchester Avenue.

Blango, Newhallville’s alderman, said he plans to work on the idea with New Haven State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield and to offer it as an ordinance change before the Board of Aldermen.

The state legislature is currently considering a bill to allow cities like New Haven to install the so-called ​“red-light cameras.” Proponents have spoken of them as a way to make streets safer for traffic; they haven’t previously been discussed as tools for fighting violent street crime.

Blango prefaced his idea by saying that constituents have pressed him for action on at least six unsolved homicides in Newhallville. ​“People want my head. [They say to me] ​‘You ain’t done nothing.’”

In a neighborhood where people are fearful and often won’t talk even if they have valuable information, Blango said, crime-fighting cameras may well be a welcome addition.

“If people don’t tell, maybe the camera will,” he said.

Although a formal vote on the proposal was not taken, the management team’s chairman Frank Jackson, Jr. said the team endorses Blango’s proposal.

Last month the bill to allow municipalities to use the cameras passed the Transportation Committee of the state legislature, after intense lobbying by New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar. Much of the New Haven delegation is behind it.

Click here for Christine Stuart’s update on the bill.

The bill restricts the deployment of the cameras to cities of 60,000 or more,. At present, the bill is meandering through the Judiciary Committee and faces considerable opposition. Civil libertarians question whether the cameras succeed in cutting speeding; and whether they violate people’s privacy rights. New Haven’s ​“traffic-calming” proponents have been pushing for the bill for years.

Newhallville neighbor Moses Nelson (at right in picture) asked Blango if he had considered working with local businesses, some of which have surveillance cameras in place.

Blango said that Newhallville has 18 convenience stores, and much of the crime is clustered around those locations. He was skeptical of the cameras installed there being of much use. When police investigate crime in an area where there may be footage, Blango reported, ​“for some strange reason, the film is lost.”

He said he has not encountered that situation himself. But he was skeptical about the cooperation of the convenience store owners. ​“One of the store owners told [District Manager] Lt. Thaddeus Reddish to get off his property,” Blango said.

Reddish confirmed that while some of the businesses in Newhallville do have surveillance cameras, they have not been of much use. ​“It’s not the best of surveillance equipment. It’s grainy,” said Reddish. In one instance when he was investigating a robbery, there was film, but for these reasons, it was unhelpful.

Blango remained positive about the traffic cameras. ​“You may see a tattoo, a ring,” he said, suggesting an image captured might lead to the solving of a crime.

“We spend millions on [police] overtime,” he said. By contrast, he suggested cameras seem a reasonable crime-fighting investment.

In 2008 surveillance cameras were installed by the Chapel West Special Services District to deter car break-ins. Click here for that story and the lively debate about privacy rights and the degree to which the city can regulate them.