SF Man Takes Crime Into His Own Hands

SAN FRANCISCO Aug. 30, 2007 (KGO) (KGO) -- Crime cameras have become a hot topic in Bay Area communities. Do they work or do they violate civil liberties? A man in one troubled San Francisco neighborhood has taken matters into his own hands and his video has led to an arrest.

Crime cameras have become a hot topic in Bay Area communities. Do they work or do they violate civil liberties? A man in one troubled San Francisco neighborhood has taken matters into his own hands and his video has led to an arrest.

Kendall Willets shot a suspected mugger Wednesday night, not with a gun, but with a camera.

For nearly eight years Willets has lived directly across the street from a public housing complex in the Lower Haight neighborhood.

"We've seen enough crime and had enough problems that we felt we needed to be able to record some of this to keep an eye on things."

So he mounted two cameras at the front of his house and keeps them rolling 24 seven. What he captured Wednesday night was a blatant attack and mugging of a Bay Area tourist. Willits is probably is the only one with any footage.

The city has a crime camera on the corner, but it's aimed away from the complex.

The housing authority has 178 cameras at public housing sites all over the city, but not at this one.

Greg Fortner, who represents the SF Housing Authority, says that there a private security firm and city patrols, but Willets says it's not enough.

"The main plan is for us to do the work to clean it up, to put ourselves on the line for what their problems are", says Fortner

Crime in the Lower Haight valley neighborhood has dropped since last year in just about every major category except homicides, but safety is still very much a concern.

"I know its happening all over the city, not just our neighborhood but we have long standing of those issues and problems", says neighborhood activist, Vallie Brown.

Other lifelong residents such as Inez James says what Kendall Willets is doing makes sense.

"Of course I support that he got his own camera and I say everybody else get those cameras too so you'll know what's going on."

Willits turned in his tape to authorities, who shortly after, were able to make an arrest of the matching suspect on the tape.

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