CAMDEN, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker said the combination of technology and community policing has made Camden a crime-fighting example for the nation.<\/p>\n
Booker toured the Camden County Police Department’s real time tactical operation intelligence center on Friday as he promoted his legislation to help police departments acquire crime-tracking technology.<\/p>\n
“Camden is the gold standard, and in many ways what they’re doing here is so innovative and cutting edge that they are providing an example for our country,” Booker said.<\/p>\n
Violent crime in Camden has gone down sharply in the last decade, with a 90% reduction in homicides since the county force began Camden patrols in 2013.<\/p>\n
Inside the tactical center, police coordinate real-time information from a gunshot detection system with drone video and license plate readers to give officers a faster response to crime. Computers in patrol cars dispatch the unit closest to a crime location.<\/p>\n
“What I tell our residents all the time is if you don’t see a cop out there, we’re still watching, because we have cameras out there,” Camden County Police Chief Gabriel Rodriguez told KYW Newsradio.<\/p>\n
Booker and elected officials watched from the rooftop of police headquarters as officers demonstrated how drones are utilized: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to \u2018Star Trek!\u2019” Booker exclaimed.<\/p>\n
Booker and Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy have introduced the bipartisan Violent Incident Clearance and Technological Investigative Methods Act, or VICTIM Act, which would provide $360 million in federal grants for police departments to upgrade technology.<\/p>\n
“What I see here just blows my mind about how far they’ve come both in technology, which is vital, I now see, but more important than that, it is really the people that work here and the philosophy and the values that they’re bringing to the community,” Booker told reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAMDEN, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker said the combination of technology and community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7980,95199,69452,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-217857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-camden","tag-camden-county-police-department","tag-cory-booker","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}