Atlanta City Council member wants to add more cameras to streets

Atlanta council member pushes for more cameras

An Atlanta City Council member is pushing for more cameras in the city similar to what London does.

ATLANTA - An Atlanta City Council member would like to see the city be more like London.

Howard Shook praises the coverage of surveillance cameras that London authorities used to keep watch over every block.

Shook said Atlanta needs to do the same.

"We are 400 officers short," Shook said. "In a sense, more cameras can help close the gap in the officers we don't have. They cannot be on every corner."

So, the veteran Buckhead representative has proposed a bill that would require owners of new large buildings -- commercial and residential -- to put up cameras.

Undoubtedly, the technology is already part of the construction budgets.

Shook wants to make sure that is the case, and he has been assured by the Atlanta city attorney that the stipulation would be legal.

"We have a lot of cameras," he added, "but we need more and they need to be linked to the VIC (video integration center)".

The VIC is where officers can pull up a video feed to see in real-time what is going on.

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