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Tijuana Installs Cameras For Tourist Safety
http://www.thesandiegochannel.com/news/2896869/detail.html
Street Activities Monitored
March 4, 2004
SAN DIEGO -- Public security officials in Tijuana, Mexico are hoping to make a popular avenue safer for tourists.
The city is installing 15 security cameras along Avenida Revolucion.
The street is a popular destination for visitors looking to shop and party.
The cameras will be installed over the next couple months, and will be monitored for criminal activities -- including corruption by police officers.
Tijuana authorities also plan to install 80 more cameras throughout the city.
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Tijuana to videotape tourists for safety
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20040308-9...
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 8, 2004
TIJUANA ? To crack down on crime and police corruption, the city is installing surveillance cameras in the busy tourist district.
"Anyone who comes for healthy diversion on Avenida Revoluci?n can feel safe because we'll be making sure that nothing happens," said Mart?n Dom?nguez
Rocha, Tijuana's secretary of public safety.
The cameras initially will be set up at 15 locations along Avenida Revoluci?n and around commonly used pedestrian pathways to the border, including
bridges and the Viva Tijuana shopping area near the San Ysidro crossing.
"If we can scare the social predators in the zone, that will be a step forward," Dom?nguez said.
The cameras will be monitored around the clock, alerting authorities to activities such as drug deals, drunken fights and robberies at automated
teller machines. The videos "can also monitor the work of our police, to make sure that they don't commit any irregularities," Dom?nguez said.
U.S. visitors increasingly have stepped forward in recent months to complain of mistreatment by Tijuana police ? from extortion to rape.
Other cities in Mexico, including Mexico City and Monterrey, have installed video cameras in certain areas. Tijuana also has installed them at the
crossroads east of downtown known as La Cinco y Diez. These are the first video cameras along Avenida Revoluci?n.
The installation should be complete within two months. The cameras will be monitored from a special section in the city's police communications
center.
"This will help us mitigate not only the problems that tourists face, but also the problems that tourists cause," said Jes?s Manuel Sandez, president
of Tijuana's Business Coordinating Council. The coalition of business groups is financing the project through a special fund generated by payroll
taxes.
While most tourists are law-abiding, "we also receive tourists that are not precisely the kind that a city wants," he said.
Eventually, the program will be expanded to include 85 cameras in Tijuana's downtown, Sandez said. The council also plans to install emergency
telephones on Avenida Revoluci?n to help tourists report crimes immediately.
Merchants who serve the tourist market say they are happy with the cameras. "This could be an efficient tool, if used correctly," said Andr?s M?ndez,
owner of the Monte Alban Curio Shop and president of the Mexican Business and Tourism Committee.
M?ndez and others say the key to the success of the program is making sure that the cameras are monitored closely and that no one is allowed to
interfere with them.
David Sol?s, president of Tijuana's Citizens Commission for Public Safety, said his group, Graffiti Busters, first suggested using video cameras in
1995 to monitor the area the way cameras are used to monitor U.S. shopping malls.
He said surveillance cameras "can be much more efficient than posting a squad of federal police to patrol a street corner."
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