Security Cameras Not Always Working

March 23, 2007 (WPVI) -- There seems to be no question that security cameras help solves crimes, and probably help prevent them too, but the cameras are a whole lot more effective when they actually work.

The five surveillance cameras along the 54th Street corridor were announced with great fanfare back in the fall.

Curtis Jones, then president of the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corp., announced that through a 700-thousand dollar grant from the Justice Department, the cameras would record everything that happened along those intersections 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But the more some residents learned, the more questions they had.

"It's like a broken TV. You got a TV sitting in your house and you can't play it. You're not getting anything out of it," said ward leader Steve Jones.

Curtis Jones, who is now a candidate for city council, was not pleased with the reservations about the system.

Jones was so confident that the system worked, he claimed during a gathering at the corner of 54th and Berks Street Thursday night that the group was being recorded by the camera that could be viewed at PCDC headquarters in Center City.

"It's being recorded right now and what'll happen is it'll be monitored and you'll see us standing right here at this point in time," he said

But when we arrived at PCDC headquarters to see if that was true, we found the camera at 54th and Berks and two others were down and had been since March 5th

"There were blown fuses in the main box of the three cameras that were down," said Zubar Abdusshaheed of Ronin Security.

Those three cameras were back online Friday, but the two that were working Thursday night are now down.

Neither PCDC nor their contractor, Ronin Security, knew about the outages because they admit the system is only checked every two weeks to see if it is working properly

"I think it's a terrible fraud perpetrated on a fine community like this. I think we're being deceived," said Jacqueline Carthon, block captain.

These problems uncovered during the course of our investigation have made residents even more dubious of the surveillance program.

Some think the 700-thousand dollar federal grant should have been given to somebody who knows something about surveillance

"I think the public would be better served if they would have selected the Philadelphia Police department," said Steve Jones.

While some would like to see the police take over this project, the city has not made a decision. Further, the city has asked the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corp. to put its plans to expand the program to Lansdowne Avenue on hold until it establishes uniform standards for monitoring.

(Copyright 2007 by Action News and 6abc. All Rights Reserved.)

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