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Hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras are being put in in the city of Oakland and surrounding freeways to battle crime, California Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced Friday.
Newsom, a Democrat, stated in a information launch that the California Highway Patrol has contracted with Flock Safety to install 480 cameras that may establish and observe automobiles by license plate, sort, coloration and even decals and bumper stickers. The cameras will present authorities with real-time alerts of suspect automobiles.
Opponents say the know-how infringes on privateness and can lead to additional police abuse of already marginalized communities.
But Newsom, who has deployed state attorneys and CHP officers to help Oakland in its crackdown on crime, stated the surveillance community will give regulation enforcement instruments “to effectively combat criminal activity and hold perpetrators accountable — building safer, stronger communities for all Californians.”
Public security stays a priority statewide, particularly retail theft, forcing even liberal leaders of Democratic cities to embrace elevated policing.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is photographed whereas talking. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
But whereas crime has dropped in different huge California cities, it has surged in Oakland, a city of roughly 400,000 throughout the bay from San Francisco. In-N-Out Burger closed its solely restaurant in Oakland — the primary closure in its 75-year historical past — due to automobile break-ins, property harm, theft and robberies.
On Thursday, the CEOs of 4 main employers in downtown Oakland introduced plans for a joint $10 million safety program to enhance public security and defend workers. The corporations are Blue Shield of California, Clorox, Kaiser Permanente and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Cat Brooks, government director of the Anti Police-Terror Project and a 2018 Oakland mayoral candidate, stated Friday that cash can be spent on defective know-how and positioned in poor communities to additional terrorize Black, Latino and different weak residents.
“How many people could be housed or trained into a living wage job or sent to college and get health care, things that actually keep people safe?” she stated. “You’re divesting in Oakland. You are taking critical resources that this city so desperately needs to build whole, happy, safe communities and you’re putting that toward the same failed strategies.”
Neither the governor’s workplace nor California Highway Patrol has stated how a lot the contract will price.
Nearly 300 of the cameras can be deployed on city streets and the rest can be deployed on close by state highways, in accordance to the governor’s assertion.
For the sake of privateness, footage can be retained for 28 days and won’t be shared with third events past California regulation enforcement, Newsom’s workplace stated.
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Earlier this month, voters authorized a poll measure backed by San Francisco Mayor London Breed to grant police entry to drones and surveillance cameras.
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