Anacostia, Rhode Island Avenue, and Congress Heights all make the list of 10 Metro stations that will be receiving new surveillance cameras over the next six months, Metro Transit Police said yesterday. The Post reports today that the District is kicking in $225,000 towards the effort. Transit Police have recommended that Maryland and Virgina install additional cameras at stops in their jurisdictions as well, especially at stops at the ends of lines.
The only Metro station that currently has a crime camera outside its entrance is the 13th Street side of the U Street/Cardozo/African American Civil War Memorial Station.
The line-ends in Fairfax and Prince George’s counties are the highest-crime areas in the 86-station Metrorail system. Auto theft is, unsurprisingly, a particular problem at outlying stations: 27 auto thefts occurred at the Franconia-Springfield stop in 2007, while 19 cars were reported stolen from the New Carollton stop in the same period.
Violence, of course, is a bigger fear for most of us than theft. As Metro continues to break ridership records, reports of violent crime in the system are increasing, too. In the District, the single most crime-plagued station is Anacostia, where a Metrobus driver was grazed in the head by a stray bullet during an afternoon shootout last month. A 25-year-old man was shot and killed in a carjacking at the Anacostia station last November. Thirty robberies were reported at Anacostia in 2007, most of them the work of juveniles after school hours.
The Post says that each of the cameras costs about $12,000, including the labor to install them. It’s unclear if the $225,000 is merely the District’s share of the bill (with the rest to come from Metro’s internal budget), or the total cost. It it’s the latter, spending $225,000 on security cams for 10 stations would work out to an average of not quite two new cameras for each one. Let’s hope Metro authorities have a good system in place for figuring out how best to allocate their new anti-crime tools.
Will the presence of additional cameras make you feel safer? Do you believe the police when they say the cameras will actually deter violence?
