Houston, Texas, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Tuesday he expects the combination of those two initiatives to help quell “moderate fluctuations” in violent crime, which Chief Art Acevedo said mirrors a nationwide trend.
“The uptick in crime is a concern to everyone, and I want for us to get on top of it now,” Turner said, during a lengthy news conference at Houston Police headquarters in which HPD also kicked off its annual “March on Crime.”
Crime data provided by Houston police to the FBI show that while overall crime has followed a decades-long downturn, violent crime has increased 6 percent over the last four years, driven by higher instances of aggravated assaults and rapes. And crime is up substantially over the first 50 days of the year compared to the same time period last year, with violent crime increasing about 18 percent and property crime rising about 10 percent, according to police data.
“We don’t want to wait until we get to a situation where it becomes really a crisis so to speak,” Turner said. “We want to check things where they are. Quite frankly, we need those technology enhancements and we need them right now.”
Turner and Acevedo laid out a plan that called for $1.5 million in overtime for additional patrols; the technology upgrades include a network of surveillance cameras that homeowners could opt into and a pilot project using a gunshot detection system called ShotSpotter that would cover 5 square miles in south Houston. Acevedo also said his officers would be paying specific attention to felons caught with firearms.
Those efforts are meant to help target all violent crime, with a focus on murders, aggravated assaults, aggravated robbery, as well as dismantling and disrupting gangs.
“When you combine the technology enhancements with the additional overtime of $1.5 million, I think you can see some significant improvements in public safety throughout our entire city,” Turner said.
The mayor said the city is still about 600 officers short of what the department needs, despite personnel increases over the last four years. He called on the private sector to help the cash-strapped city pay for the $8.5 million technology effort when it is ready. The mayor said he has already contacted potnetial partners about the plan and hopes to be able to announce funding partnerships soon. He said the proposed technology enhancements are important because criminals have grown more sophisticated and are often masked when they commit robberies — making it more difficult to identify them.
The overtime payments are effective immediately and will get more officers on patrol over the next six months.
“The economic vibrancy of a city starts with a safe city,” Acevedo said about asking philanthropy for help. “There’s a lot of people and companies in the city that can write a check, and it’s an accounting error to their bottom line. And so if you want to give a gift to the people of Houston, that will be here and paying dividends long after you’re gone, write that check.”
The department is deploying a system provided by ShotSpotter that helps locate the site of gunfire. Acevedo said there are other programs, including analytics equipment, that would help police search through and digest a large amount of information much more quickly.
“We want to know about the gun violence that is going on and the gun fights going on that we’re not being called on,” Acevedo said, suggesting that if successful, the program could expand to become a citywide system.
Many specifics of the proposed “enhancements” remain unclear. Acevedo said the $8.5 million would go toward “a public safety camera system that will be spread out throughout the city,” which business owners and homeowners will both be able to opt into. The department would then be able to access videos and hold it for up to five days. Acevedo said that some of the cameras might come from Ring, a controversial home surveillance doorbell company with which the city entered into a partnership last year.
“We need that virtual watch, that virtual capability and thanks to the mayor, hopefully we’ll get it,” Acevedo said.
Its unclear how the department’s partnership with Ring has benefited its efforts to fight crime, and opponents of the partnership say such surveillance arrangements potentially infringe on civil liberties and the privacy rights of individual citizens while ratchets up community fears needlessly.
Acevedo dismissed those concerns, saying homeowners and businesses will be able to opt into the program and that there is no presumption of privacy on public streets.
“When I tried bring private safety cameras and the Austin, the ACLU there was against it. So I told them, okay, well, here's the deal. You demanded that we have cameras on public streets and police cars to keep an eye on the on the cops. Well, if it’s good enough to keep an eye on the cops, we need a camera to keep an eye on the crooks.”
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