× Expand Todd Hubler

When asked about concerns over the proliferation of security cameras around Madison, Joel DeSpain has a quick response: Kelly Nolan. The Madison Police Department’s public information officer notes that the UW-Whitewater student disappeared after a night out with friends on State Street on June 23, 2007. Sixteen days later, she was found murdered in a densely wooded property in the town of Dunn.

“Nobody really knows who she was with or when she left the area. I think if we had the [surveillance] cameras we have now, we’d have a lot more information on what happened to her,” DeSpain says. “Ten years ago, we had no cameras in the area.”

Today, there are 60 cameras in downtown Madison that record and stream video. City-wide there are about 800 cameras. They’re used for police investigations and to monitor traffic, crowds and road conditions. DeSpain says cameras have been “incredibly helpful” in solving crimes in the central district.

Officials are hoping more cameras can help reduce the number of homicides — there have been a record 11 this year — and incidents of shots fired in the city. Mayor Paul Soglin and Ald. Paul Skidmore have proposed an amendment to the 2018 capital budget authorizing $125,000 for 18 high resolution surveillance cameras to be installed throughout Madison. It was unanimously approved by the Finance Committee on Sept. 25. The council will take up the budget in November.

“We want to be able to catch the people who are firing these guns,” Soglin says. “It’s unacceptable to have even a single incident of shots fired.... The goal is to stop people firing guns at other people, buildings and cars.”

The police department didn’t ask for the new cameras.

“In the wake of all the gun violence, the mayor asked our command staff, ‘What can I do to help?’” DeSpain recalls. “The suggestion was that more cameras at intersections — in areas where we have seen a higher volume of incidents — would be helpful. The mayor took it from there.”

Soglin and the police won’t reveal the locations of the new cameras. Skidmore says that at least one will be placed at McKenna Boulevard and Raymond Road. “[The cameras] are going up in hotspots,” Skidmore says. “Places where there is a propensity of people shooting at other people or murdering other people.”

At the Sept. 25 Finance Committee meeting, Soglin said the new cameras would be able to read license plate numbers on moving vehicles. DeSpain says darkness and weather conditions sometimes make that impossible with current cameras.

“We might be able to identify getaway cars, even if we can just determine the type of vehicle or its color,” DeSpain says. “Cameras have gotten way, way better. It’s no longer grainy video.”

The city’s 800 cameras are located inside city buildings, at busy intersections and on light poles, says Herb King, the city’s technical services manager. Some are fixed but others can rotate 360 degrees.

Surveillance cameras have become invaluable for law enforcement, says DeSpain. But the 18 new cameras will be “just be a piece of a much larger puzzle.”

“Almost every significant crime — and even some that aren’t so significant — the first thing [officers] do is look for cameras. They aren’t all city cameras either. A lot of video used in investigations is from private businesses, ATMs, the State Patrol,” DeSpain says. “Most businesses are quick to help us, too. Target has some really great cameras. Soon as you go up that escalator you’re on-camera. I sometimes wave as I go up.”

Police also use cameras mounted on Madison Metro buses. “As soon as we have a crime take place, we always check to see if there was a Metro bus in the area,” DeSpain says. “We get lots of good information from Metro cameras.”

UW-Madison has the largest collection of cameras locally. University Police Lt. Clark Brunner says the university has around 2,000, with “hundreds” monitoring building entrances and campus walkways.

“I know some people don’t like cameras because it’s an intrusion,” DeSpain says. “But from strictly a policing standpoint, they are very, very helpful.”

Ald. Ledell Zellers supports buying the new cameras, saying being monitored by cameras in public places “is just the world we live in now.” But when a constituent asked if a camera could see inside a downtown home, Zellers was unhappy with answer.

“We just don’t know. There are no reassurances on what these high resolution cameras can and cannot see,” Zellers says. “If you were naive, like I was, you’d think the [cameras] wouldn’t be able to see inside homes.”

Zellers and Ald. Samba Baldeh are working with the city’s IT department to address the issue. “Whether it’s the way the cameras are positioned or angled or whatever, we absolutely must prevent this,” Zellers says. “I don’t want there just to be a policy, that we will ‘cover our eyes’ if it happens. I want it to be physically impossible for the cameras to visually intrude.”

But if you’re walking downtown or driving down a city street, Soglin says you’re being watched. “And that’s the case in virtually every city in the United States,” says the mayor. “So don’t pick your nose in public.”