. . . ZRP Avondale installs street cameras
THE Zimbabwe Republic Police has partnered with the business community and installed cameras on roads in Avondale in a bid to curb crime in the area.
Of late, Avondale has seen a surge in criminal activities.
This has seen some individuals and companies teaming up with the police to ensure that such cases are thwarted.
According to the ZRP Crime Consultative Committee (CCC) website, more cameras would be installed, especially in crime-prone areas.
Most of the cameras are along King George Road in Avondale.
“Many more are going up around our township and we are grateful to the individuals and corporates who have partnered us in our quest to assist the police in fighting crime in our policing area,” reads a statement posted on the website.
“Thank you to Dahua Technologies for a good brand of high resolution cameras, ably distributed in Zimbabwe by InfoBase, a local Avondale company assisting its community.”
The CCC members have been out in full force following the deployment of 13 vehicles in the area.
“Since launching this CCC initiative in Avondale we have been fortunate to work with a willing and dedicated police team ably led by Officer-in-Charge Inspector Guvakumwe,” said the CCC members.
“There is still a lot of work to be done and we have availed ourselves as residents and business owners to assist where we can and all from our resources to assist our police station, i.e putting cameras, patrolling, painting, landscaping, building, training for customer service, getting the dogs and security around the UZ, improving the relations between the station and us the residents, but most importantly pushing for a customer-centric police team at Avondale Police Station, that is proactive and not just reactionary, alert and sensitive to our needs.”
The CCC members said the biggest challenge they were facing was late response to crime scenes by the police as they did not have transport.
“We have sourced two from among our CCC community members and we are happy to have got a donation and have started the process of importing,” they said. “This is the route we are taking in Avondale endorsed by the police to give us the residents, homes, schools, business owners a good service and fast world-class reaction time, also with access to specialist services for your convenience.”
The police are set to introduce an application with an emergency button known as the Help24seven that will be downloaded on mobile phones and once activated, the force will respond quickly since it will pin point the accuracy of the location of the incident being flighted on a large dashboard screen.
The application was donated by Infobase.
“We will start going into overdrive to ensure every Avondale resident, including businesses, have downloaded this application from the Playtore.” the police said.
“For now, it is only available on the Android Playstore and will be available on Apple app store in the next few days. In the meantime all iPhone users and non-smart hone users can still have access to police/ emergency response and service by calling on or WhatsApp message to +263 77 643 4656.”