SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Police Department and Centro San Antonio are collaborating to propose a new plan to keep downtown safe.
The proposal was brought forth on Tuesday's budget workshop where SAPD Chief William McManus asked City Council to fund a network of security cameras downtown that would use AI software to deter crime and to arrest those committing the crimes.
"The AI technology is to pick up behavior that is not typical for that area," McManus said. "Again, crowds gathering fights, car crash, whatever it may be."
It's a proposal that stems from a security audit conducted by Centro San Antonio to discover gaps and opportunities to make downtown safer.
Trish DeBerry, chair for Centro SA, explains the proposal had been in the works for over a year.
"The findings from that study and basically have led today, which was we did not have an integrated security camera network," DeBerry said. "It wasn't very sophisticated, it was not being monitored regularly."
San Antonio police have already been monitoring hotspots to deter violent crime across the city, in phase one of the Violent Crime Reduction Plan. Chief McManus says the plan for the security cameras downtown is to accomplish a different goal.
"You have a lot of people gathering on the corners who were drinking and you have people if trash that's gathering that, that's accumulating in certain areas," McManus said. "It's for issues that again degrade the quality of life in that area, but it's not specifically violent crime."
The over one million dollar proposal faced criticism from several city councilmembers who were concerned about the possibility of using facial recognition software for the cameras in the future. Chief McManus was adamant that's something he does not want included in the software.
"First of all, it's a controversial issue," McManus said. "And the reason for the controversy, which is a misidentification of minority groups, is the reason I don't want to go there.”
If the proposal receives funding, phase one could begin as soon as January 2025.
Phase one would install cameras on Commerce Street, from Alamo Street to North St. Mary's Street. Businesses would be able to collaborate, integrating their security cameras into SAPD's surveillance network.
"It was an area that we pulled CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) data from to see where the most calls were coming from," McManus said. "It also provides situational awareness for police and serves as an investigative tool because it is real time. We expect that it may help lower response times in those areas."
Chief McManus believes the cameras would be better programmed to detect activity out of the ordinary once phase one is complete.
After phase one, SAPD says results will be evaluated. Phase two would add surveillance to additional blocks in downtown San Antonio.
The San Antonio City Council will finalize and vote on the budget on September 19.