Milwaukee City Wire

Havenwoods residents are committed to keeping their neighborhood safe.

The neighborhood’s Business Improvement District recently decided to purchase new public safety cameras to help the police department protect the community, WISN reported May 3.

"This is a neighborhood, this is a community, and this is something that the residents have been asking for and we are excited to be able to have another layer of public safety added," District 9 Alderwoman Chantia Lewis told WISN.

With crime rates on the rise, supporters of the purchase are hoping to turn the tide.

"Being able to have that objective evidence outside of the other normal means is very assistive," said Jeffrey Norman, Chief of the Milwaukee Police Department, in the report.

The plan calls for Flock Safety, a public safety operating system, to install 14 cameras in high-traffic areas around Havenwoods, according to WISN. The cameras will monitor for potential illegal activity.

"It takes a picture of the back of the car, of every car that passes one of these devices and it matches those cars against the FBI's NCIC (National Crime Information Center) database,” Flock Safety Vice President, Josh Thomas, told WISN. “So, if it's a wanted or stolen car that's already in the database, a patrol officer (who) is nearby will get the alert directly in the laptop in their car."

Those images will be available for up to a month and will allow Milwaukee police to access and cross-reference data to support investigations, WISN reported.

Two cameras have been purchased and installed already, and the community plans to have 12 more operational by the end of the summer, according to WISN.