31 Dallas Crime Cameras Are Not Working

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The Dallas Police Department's security cameras in uptown have been used to catch criminals on videotape, and have even helped send them to jail in certain cases. But CBS 11 News has learned about a major problem with the network of cameras. Dozens of them – 31 to be exact – are not currently operational, leaving authorities with a blind eye in a crucial part of the city.

The network snafu is the result of the new Museum Tower, currently under construction in the Dallas Arts District. With only seven floors completed on the project, the building is nowhere close to the 44 stories that it will eventually reach. "Every four days, we're going to be pouring a floor, if everything goes as planned," explained construction superintendent Cain Young. "Anytime you put something this big downtown, it's going to mess up some things that are already planned."

But at just seven stories, the apartment high rise is already tall enough to block the radio signal between a security camera and Dallas City Hall, where the cameras are all monitored. As it turns out, that one camera is an important one.

A city official told CBS 11 News that this one camera is the main link to 30 other cameras across the area, which is why 31 cameras are currently down. The Dallas Police Department is working on a plan to move that camera, but it is unclear how long this project will take.

People heading to an event at the Nasher Sculpture Center this weekend, where the security cameras are offline, said that they did not feel safe without the devices watching the streets. "It gives you an added sense of security, because if something were to happen, you've got a good chance of something getting resolved fairly quickly," said North Richland Hills resident Simon McPherson.

"You need the cameras, and you need to turn them on. Period," added Dallas resident Ben Barnett.

The cameras were installed across Dallas five years ago. Some people believe that the Dallas Police Department should have seen this problem coming, especially since the investor in the Museum Tower is the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund.

Update: According to the Dallas Police Department, all but two of the 31 offline security cameras are now operating correctly once again. Those two remaining cameras are in a different part of the city and not actually affected by the Museum Tower project. (April 13, 2011 -- 9:52 a.m.)