People rally against surveillance cameras in Syracuse, NY.

With some holding signs demanding “No surveillance cameras in our communities,” about 50 people gathered Wednesday evening in front of Syracuse City Hall to protest plans to monitor two parts of the city.

Police have proposed seeking $125,000 in federal stimulus money to put nine surveillance cameras on the city’s Near West Side. Police also asked the Common Council to accept $84,400 for cameras to be installed around Pioneer Homes.

Speaker after speaker denounced the plan, many expressing distrust of the police.

Julio Urrutia, of Onondaga Hill, said putting the cameras in the neighborhood would create “an electronic wall around the Latino community.”


Gary Bonaparte, who lives on Gifford Street, part of the area that could be under surveillance if the cameras are put up as planned, said he was afraid, but not just of more crime. “I’m afraid of the police,” he said. “They beat us and they kill us,” Bonaparte told the crowd, “and we pay them for that.”

“Police officers routinely harass our people,” said Derek Ford, who lives on Syracuse’s East Side. “That’s why we don’t want to come forward and talk to police,” he said. And police, he said, are using that lack of communication as an argument for putting up cameras.

Saying she respected the job police do, Syracuse West Side resident Barrie Gewanter, of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said she wanted controls on what police could do with cameras. “I don’t trust the police to police themselves,” she said.


Link:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/11/dozens_rally_against_surveilla.html