The Pine Bluff Police Department is seeking to finalize a contract to install more cameras across the city.
Speaking at a Pine Bluff Small Business Association luncheon at Leon’s Catfish and Shrimp on Wednesday, PBPD Capt. Jason Howard said the city has some cameras that are about to be installed, with more likely to be acquired through a contract with Motorola. Department leaders are meeting with the tech company Thursday in hopes of signing a deal, Howard indicated.
The city has allocated $350,000 toward the purchase of new cameras, PBPD public information specialist John Worthen confirmed Wednesday, but the exact number is still in flux.
It has not yet been determined where the new cameras will be installed, but Howard told a small group at the luncheon the areas that need the most attention will receive the cameras, which relay live pictures to the PBPD’s Real-Time Crime Center at headquarters.
“We would love for you all to come look at it so you all know we have this kind of stuff,” Howard said. The Crime Center is manned between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily, but patrol officers on the graveyard shift know how to get into the center in case they need to review video, Howard said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Howard shared information about the police department before interim Fire Chief Randy Compton took the podium. The PBPD’s Shirley Warrior and Compton were named interim chiefs in April.
Both departments, Compton said, have worked hand-in-hand to deter crime. For the Pine Bluff Fire and Emergency Services department, that has meant addressing the ongoing problem with blight in the city.
As an example, knowing where the vacant properties are helps to keep vagrants away in order to deter the structure fires that otherwise have ravaged the city.
“Code enforcement has a list of houses, and what we’re planning on doing — especially the ones that have burned a certain percentage of it — we’re trying to expedite taking those houses down, so that is one way we are trying to help with the blight,” Compton said, adding the fire department is working with other public entities in the matter.
The PBPD has bolstered its recruiting efforts to hire 18 new officers who are still going undergoing training, Howard said. That increases the department’s roll to 94 officers.
“Recruitment started being more aggressive. They started putting it on Facebook and Instagram,” Howard said. “People are seeing it more. We’ve pulled some other officers who used to work here and hired them back as part-time officers. The part-time officers really want to help us because they have to do 10 hours a month, and most of them want to do more than 10 hours a month. They come help us out whenever we are short on the streets and stuff like that.”
Howard, who oversees patrol, said his goal is to have eight to 10 officers patrolling the streets at a time.
“We fell back a step a lot whenever Benton, Bryant, the State Police and Little Rock and North Little Rock opened up their recruitment aggressively,” he said.
He also revealed certain calls go to the PBPD’s telephone reporting unit to free up manpower from reports of criminal mischief that have already occurred.
“I see a lot more police on traffic stops, having these little police lights on and going down these neighborhoods,” Howard said. “I think that’s the biggest deterrent. They never know where we’re going to be.”
The fire department, which numbers 92 employees, is anticipating completion of a remodeled training academy at 3216 W. Seventh Ave. Compton said the old tower was taken down and is being replaced.
“The new infrastructure will allow the water to drain off,” Compton said. “Right now we have a drainage problem, so they’re going to do the infield. Right now, we have a driveway that goes all the way around where the training facility will be sitting at, and so we need that water to run off because, remember, when they’re sitting at this burned building, then there will be a standpipe system on the outside that we’ll hook to that will flood quite a few gallons out of there. We don’t want the water to sit there and mess with the asphalt on our driveway.”
The fire department is taking part in more community service, Compton said, like organizing a cereal drive competition within the department to see which of the seven fire stations can raise the most boxes of cereal to donate to a local drive. Firefighters were allowed to drive their engines around their zones to collect the cereals.
Compton said that helped to boost morale within the department.
Firefighters are also willing to do more to achieve department-wide goals, Compton reported. They’ve even asked him about going to “48-96” shifts where groups will work for 48 straight hours and take off for 96 straight.
“I told them, ‘If you can come in for 24 hours, I’ll think about it,'” Compton said.
