A New Orleans nonprofit will soon give Columbus Police Department a new tool when it comes to violent crime.
The department has ordered around 10 cameras from Project NOLA, a nonprofit that acts as a force multiplier for law enforcement’s surveillance capabilities.
The cameras, which cost around $12,000, will be placed in hotspots and monitored both locally by CPD and, if needed, by workers at the University of New Orleans, Chief Joseph Daughtry told The Dispatch.
“In the event we have a major incident and we have all hands on deck, we can call NOLA and have them go through all the footage and start sending (evidence) to us,” Daughtry said.
CPD officers can review the footage themselves, but the people at Project NOLA can backstop the department if needed, Daughtry said.
The camera discussion follows a weekend with many reports of gunshots. Daughtry said CPD got 12 reports of shots being fired between Thursday and Sunday, but several of those calls pertained to the same incidents.
According to its web site, Project NOLA is housed on the UNO campus. It provides low-cost, high-definition cameras to municipalities, business owners and residents, which transmit data to the Real-Time Crime Information Center at UNO.
Video is retained for about 10 days, and footage is only released to law enforcement.
Daughtry would not comment on the capabilities of the cameras, but the Project NOLA website says that they include gunshot detection capabilities, something Mayor Keith Gaskin addressed during his Wednesday press conference.
“They are similar to our sky cops, but when they hear gunfire they zoom into the area more closely,” Gaskin said.
The “sky cops” are a series of cameras put up around the city over the past several years in trouble spots to allow police to pull video footage in the aftermath of a crime. The gunshot detection capabilities make the NOLA cameras a more refined option.
Daughtry said the cameras were ordered late last year and are still in limbo today due to issues getting necessary parts.
“It’s just like cars,” Daughtry said. “For a while it was hard for us to get police cars. Now I think things are starting to move a little bit better.”
Weekend shots-fired
The only shooting that is known to have resulted in injuries was shortly after midnight Sunday, Daughtry said.
The victim was sitting in a black Tahoe in the 1700 block of Bell Avenue when he was shot in the hand.
“Someone walked up on him and opened fire,” Daughtry said. “… We didn’t respond to the scene until after he showed up at (Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle), so he was taken by private vehicle.”
No arrests have been made in that case, Daughtry said, which is the city’s first gunshot victim of the year.
Daughtry also said there had not been any shooting downtown that he knew of, despite some reports from citizens.
“We had people who heard shots (downtown),” Daughtry said. “But when people hear shots, they could be a quarter of a mile away. It’s like when you go to bed at night and you hear a train, but you don’t live nowhere near a (railroad track).”
In a Facebook post Monday, Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones argued crime is down compared to previous years.
“In 2022, there were 11 homicides,” Jones wrote. “In 2023 there were five. That suggests we are moving in the right direction. But we just can’t have guns in the hands of our most vulnerable and immature.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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