More surveillance cameras in Fayetteville almost ready

      Surveillance camera feed show parts of Bragg Blvd. Friday, Jan. 16, 2015, at the Fayetteville Police Department's Command Information Center.

Almost 40 police surveillance cameras have gone up around Fayetteville, and more are planned.

Police Chief Harold Medlock said 38 closed-circuit cameras are up and operating, mostly in the downtown area and along Bragg Boulevard into the Bonnie Doone neighborhood at Johnson Street.

Police officials had hoped to have almost twice that many cameras in use by this past spring.

"I would love to say all of those are up and operating," Medlock said in an interview earlier this month. "We have learned some things, and so has our contractor, about the deployment of these cameras that has caused us to change how we are deploying them."

For instance, two cameras were taken out by lightning strikes, Medlock said. The contractor repaired them at no additional cost to the city.

A few dozen cameras are almost ready to go live, he said.

"All of the power on all the poles are hung," Medlock said. "We now have to just hang our cameras and get them over there."

The next phase of surveillance cameras will be along parts of Skibo and Morganton roads.

Medlock introduced the city's first surveillance cameras in early 2014, about a year after his arrival here. He had been a deputy police chief in Charlotte, where police have used outdoor surveillance cameras for years. Medlock was in charge of security for the Democratic National Convention in the Queen City in 2012.

The Fayetteville police operate the cameras remotely from a control room at the downtown station, where they can zoom, tilt or pan the cameras 360 degrees.

The city received a $102,000 federal grant in late 2013 to begin buying the surveillance cameras. 

Other funds have come from the department's share of seized asset forfeitures in arrests.

Medlock said he still has plans to mount a camera outside Cape Fear Valley Medical Center. He hopes to catch gunshot victims anonymously dropped off.

His department continues discussions with "several businesses and some government entities" who want to have their cameras connected to the Police Department's surveillance network.

The bus transit center under construction downtown will have surveillance cameras, Medlock said, and so will the new Westover pool on Bonanza Drive, as well as the older Chalmers pool off Langdon Street.

"Those are some of our priorities, and we want to hit Murchison Road and going out from there," Medlock said, referring to additional cameras.