The Baltimore City Public School System announced a plan Thursday to use $500,000 in federal grant money ? plus matching funds from the city?s fiscal 2008 budget ? for the purchase of comprehensive surveillance systems at 10 schools.
Interim Baltimore City Public School chief executive officer Charlene Boston, Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm, School Police Chief Antonio Williams and several BCPSS principals met at Pimlico Elementary for the announcement of the Community Oriented Policing Services grant and the camera system purchase.
“There are two phases to the COPS grant,” Williams said. “The first part we did last year when COPS provided funding to hire 12 additional Baltimore school police officers. The second phase is the purchase of 10 surveillance camera systems that allow us to monitor the entire surrounding area.”
Currently all city schools have a front-door camera security system, but only 15 have surveillance ability that allows activity in and around the school building to be monitored effectively.
Pimlico Principal Orrester Shaw showed off his school?s comprehensive system, which operates 68 cameras simultaneously on five monitors. They cover the hallways, staircases, cafeteria and auditorium. Outside the school, the cameras can read license plates up to six blocks away. Installation will begin this spring, but the entire project will take a year and a half to complete.
The announcement comes days after a string of violence in city schools, including the shooting of a Frederick Douglass High student Friday ? since discharged from the hospital ? and the accidental discharge of a gun by a third-grader at Grove Park Elementary Oct. 12. The application, however, was made in May and Williams stressed that this was not a “knee-jerk” reaction to recent events. No one has been charged in the Douglass shooting, but police said they are investigating several leads.
In Baltimore City neighborhoods where surveillance cameras have been installed, crime has fallen 17 percent, he added.
The 10 schools receiving new camera systems are Lockerman-Bundy Elementary, Harbor City High, Dunbar High, Heritage and Doris M. Johnson high schools (both housed at Lake Clifton High), Hazelwood Elementary/Middle, Waverly Elementary/Middle, Merganthaler Vo-Tech, Forest Park High, Pimlico Middle and George W. McMechen Middle/High schools.
