With new security cameras, Mission police are watching

MISSION — Police have deployed a series of surveillance cameras in some public parks — and other undisclosed locations — across the city in an attempt to monitor possible criminal activity.

"We hope that this will help revitalize and move us in a different direction of policing," Mission Police Chief Leo Longoria said. "We want to further enhance security."

Funded by seized drug assets, the $150,000, eight-camera system is monitored from the Mission Police Department as well as from the department’s mobile command center.

The surveillance plan — which has been in the works for about two years and was installed last month — also allows authorities to control the cameras via the Web, provide a wireless Internet hot spot in city parks and allow patrol units to transmit data back to the police department.

"These cameras are programmable," Longoria said. "They scan the park and are able to zoom in to particular areas of concern."

Officers have already installed cameras capable of zooming in on an area or person up to a mile away at Banworth Park, located near the intersection of Shary Road and Village Drive, and at Bentsen Palm Community Park on South Inspiration Road.

Longoria said cameras are already installed in other areas throughout the city, though he refused to disclose those locations.

He hopes to expand the surveillance system across the city on a "full mesh network" within the next two years.

"We hope this will be a deterrent for criminal activity and move predators out of our parks," the chief said.

But a 2008 University of California-Berkeley study of a city-wide camera system installed by police in San Francisco found that the technology had little effect on violent crime, prostitution or vandalism. It did, however, help reduce property offenses.

The McAllen Police Department has similar plans for a camera surveillance system that will monitor city parks and the downtown. The first cameras in that system will take six to nine months to install.

"Most of the communities are moving in that direction," Longoria said. "We hope the community will have it well-received."

Elvia Perez sat in the shade at Banworth Park late Thursday afternoon as her two boys played on the pier at the goose pond.

The 33-year-old McAllen resident said she did not mind the idea of cameras across Mission and McAllen.

"Maybe it will be a good idea," she said. "I don’t have anything to hide."