Orange County installs surveillance cameras on 4 trails to deter crime
Smile. Orange County has installed cameras on four popular recreation trails to deter crime when the sun goes down.
The solar-powered, surveillance cameras, each costing $7,000, are positioned on 20-foot-tall poles in plain sight along the Cady Way, Little Econ Greenway, Pine Hills and West Orange trails.
“We want the bad guys to know the good guys are watching,” said Danny Banks, public safety director and formerly head of the Orlando office of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Banks said the areas on the trails chosen to host the nighttime sentries are strategic and some are close to sites where notorious crimes occurred.
One camera is located along the Little Econ Greenway Trail near Jay Blanchard Park where University of Central Florida graduate student Nicole Ganguzza was killed in 2008.
Ganguzza, 26, a newlywed, was jogging on the east Orange trail before 6 p.m. June 10, 2008, when someone dragged her into the woods. The killing is unsolved.
“We wonder if measures like this capturing maybe who was coming and going at the time
might have provided that one piece of evidence needed to solve that case,” Banks said.
Activated by motion, the cameras snap pictures and broadcast an audible robotic warning:
“This area is closed and your picture has been taken for possible prosecution. Please vacate the area now.”
Another camera on the Cady Way Trail is close to a site where bicyclists found the burned bodies of two Winter Park teens in April 2012.
The boys had been robbed, bound, their heads wrapped in clothing and tape, shot execution-style then set on fire.
Their killer is serving life in prison.
The device on the West Orange Trail keeps watch over the Apopka-Vineland Road Outpost behind a Buddhist temple and above an area which includes a parking lot and picnic shelter.
The cameras are intended as a deterrent in areas where vandalism, underage drinking and property theft are a concern for Orange County Parks & Recreation.
Banks said the county was experimenting with available technology which can enhance public safety.
The county collaborated with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to determine which camera system to choose and where to place them,
“This investment is really two-fold: deter crime and record activities that could help the Sheriff’s Office investigate any crimes that do occur,” he said.
The Parks & Recreation division maintains 47 miles of biking, running and walking trails, which open at sunrise and close at sunset.
“The camera can zoom in and get close-up photos of both faces and license plates,” said Matt Suedmeyer, Parks & Recreation manager.
He said the decision to try out surveillance cameras was prompted by an initiative to enhance trail and park safety not an outbreak of crime.
“Right now, we’re deploying cameras on our higher-use trails, but as we measure their success, we may add more both on our trails and in our parks,” he said. “It’s a worthwhile investment.”
The cameras are portable, a feature that allows the county to move them to other locations if needed.
“It makes me feel a little safer,” said Wendell Daltirus, 29, who was preparing to set out Friday on a 10-mile bike ride on the West Orange Trail.
He parked his car in the camera’s view.