The City of Danville is turning to ‘community cameras’ as a way to help fight crime. Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. says a $75-thousand dollar state violence prevention grant will be used to place cameras in strategic areas of the city…
[”Chief Yates (shown in photo) and Commander McCord and the other Commanders have been working together to identify places that they should be located. And I can assure you that there will be community cameras near the 1100 block of Harmon (where some recent shootings have occurred). We plan to have 20 to 30 of those cameras as well as use the remaining funds to purchase body cameras for our police officers,” said Mayor Williams.”]
The Mayor was responding after Alderman Mike Puhr noted several shots fired calls since Thanksgiving…
[”Some of the schools are not even letting their kids out on the playgrounds because some of these incidents are happening around St. Paul Church, Schlarman Academy South Daycare Center. There were two incidents over the weekend of drive-by shootings at the same house,” said Puhr.]
Shortly after Puhr made those comments there was another report of a shooting in Danville Tuesday night. Initial reports say it occurred near the Fairchild and Walnut Street intersection, but other details were not immediately available. [**Danville Police have since released information on this shooting. See our updated story.]
Puhr also said the city needs to focus more on rental property in neighborhoods…
[”We need to revisit our rental registration program (and) start doing inspections. Because a lot of these aren’t Section 8 homes, they’re homes that are just rentals that never get an internal inspection or background checks on people moving in. And I think the Mayor’s in agreement that after the first of the year we’ll start visiting that issue,” said Puhr.]
Although the grant money will be used to install some cameras, city leaders hope neighborhood groups or other citizens will help pay the cost of installing and maintaining others.
