Gresham has high hopes for the camera — and three dozen more just like it.
The city is banking on the surveillance cameras as a key part of a comprehensive plan to fight gun violence, said Sarah Cagann, Gresham’s communications manager.
The city has embraced public cameras in a way that Portland and many other big cities in Oregon haven’t.
The idea remains controversial, due to the potential for public cameras to invade people’s privacy, though they are increasingly prominent as a crime deterrent — as New York’s recent plan for security cameras on subway cars attests.
In Gresham, the city’s 24 cameras — with 15 more approved for purchase — may not sound like a lot for a city of 110,000 people over roughly 23 square miles. But the cameras, which record video but not audio, can be easily moved from one location to another.
“Often, we move them to places where there has been violent crime, shootings, robberies, a high number of crashes,” Gresham police Officer Adam Baker told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Baker said the cameras are helping Gresham police. The one at Southeast 223rd and Stark is one example.
Abeer Polus works four nights a week at a convenience store next to where the public camera sits on a pole. The 50-year-old clerk said she understands why the city placed a camera there.
“We saw a lot of weird people, drunk or taking drugs or something,” she said. “We can handle this, but not people with a gun.”
A person with a gun is exactly what happened at the store on July 28. A man came in and demanded money. He fired a shot into the ceiling and fled just before police arrived. Officers found him in a nearby parking lot and arrested him.
The camera captured the robbery, Baker said. “The footage was reviewed a few days later by an investigator, and it confirmed the statement made by the employee and will help in the prosecution of the case,” he said.
‘SUSCEPTIBLE TO ABUSE’
The use of cameras for crime prevention and investigation isn’t new to Gresham. The city set up three such cameras back in 2012. But last year Gresham truly embraced the technology, adding 13 cameras to its stock. 2022 has seen eight more join the scene so far – and the Gresham City Council in May approved the purchase of 15 more.
The police department chooses camera locations in consultation with community groups and other city agencies. Documented crimes are one factor. Others include an area’s lighting, foot traffic and scheduled events.
The city’s policies for the cameras state that they “will not intentionally be used to invade the privacy of individuals or observe areas where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists.”
But the American Civil Liberties Union is concerned about who will be watching the watchers.
“Video surveillance is susceptible to abuse, including but not limited to discriminatory targeting and voyeurism,” ACLU Oregon Executive Director Sandy Chung said. “Oftentimes, there are not effective policies in place to make sure that the use of these technologies is guided by the values of the community and public.”
“Surveillance cameras also can have a chilling effect on many members of the public who are not engaged in any type of legal wrongdoing,” Chung said in an email, “and it can have a chilling effect on public life.”
The Gresham policies say the cameras “shall not be used in an unequal or discriminatory manner and shall not target individuals or groups based solely on actual or perceived characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, economic status, age, cultural group, or disability.”
Cagann said the cameras are placed purposely to catch people’s notice for crime prevention. Most have a blue light shining on them and they are mounted next to intersections.
They can decrease crime by 20% to 50%, Cagann said, citing U.S. Department of Justice studies. Civil libertarians like Chung believe the effectiveness remains questionable.
Gresham’s crime rate has decreased in recent years, from 87.1 crimes per 1,000 residents in 2013 to last year’s 52.9 per 1,000.
But homicides have increased in the city. Ten people have been killed in Gresham so far this year, nine of them with guns. In 2013, the city recorded seven homicides; in 2021, 11.
During the first seven months of this year, the police recorded 166 shootings.
MORE THAN 100 INVESTIGATIONS
Proponents say one reason cameras are needed is because Gresham police, like many police departments right now, are struggling to fill open positions. Police Chief Travis Gullberg said the department is 17 sworn officers shy of the budgeted 129.
“You know, when I grew up, you had traffic teams, for example, people that specialized in traffic enforcement,” Gullberg told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “When you’re strapped with staffing shortages, you’re not able to provide specialty teams that focus on specific things.”
The cameras are a specialty team, of sorts.
Each camera costs $8,000 to buy, Cagann said. That doesn’t count the hours required to review footage.
“Reviewing video footage is time-consuming and one of the challenges we are facing with our current staffing shortage,” Cagann said, adding that the police department is hiring a non-sworn employee to process digital evidence.
Neither police nor city officials monitor the footage, Gullberg said. Investigators access it only after a crime has occurred.
Since January, police used footage in 106 investigations, he said.
Baker said police have used the footage in a Portland homicide case and a Gresham homicide involving the same group of people.
“When a crime happens, we can go back and recover the footage for inclusion in a case that is investigated and potentially used as evidence in court,” he said.
“We have also used footage to help solve a Portland homicide and a Gresham homicide involving the same group of people.”
OTHER CITIES
Many police departments in Oregon don’t have cameras posted around their cities.
Portland police don’t maintain or monitor surveillance cameras, said Lt. Nathan Sheppard, a police spokesperson.
Instead, detectives often rely on “private/business surveillance video footage that we are able to collect,” he said.
Eugene police started rolling out three trailers with mounted security cameras in 2018 in areas “where there have been complaints or issues, as well as locations determined through data collection,” said spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin.
City cameras in Salem focus on traffic issues.
The city of Bend installed 13 cameras throughout downtown, according to the police spokesperson Sheila Miller. The city stores the footage for 30 days and then deletes it unless the police download it for investigation.
“No one proactively watches the cameras — Bend police officers can access and download the video if necessary for investigations,” Miller said. “Examples would include a shooting in the downtown area a year ago, as well as other incidents, like stabbings or vandalism.”
In the meantime at Stark and 223rd in Gresham, buses pass, cars wait for the traffic light to turn green and the camera takes it all in. It has remained in the same position into fall.
The city is now finalizing plans to install the 15 new cameras to add to the mix around town.
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