Downtown cameras help police with cases

AUSTIN (KXAN) - It's been one year since the High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras have been keeping watch over Downtown Austin, but are the cameras doing what authorities thought they would do?

At the Downtown Commander's Forum on Tuesday night, police said recordings on the cameras are helping to solve crimes, even though violent crime has increased in that part of the city.

Officers who work the downtown area also talked to downtown dwellers about what they're doing to make the area safer, especially after several high-profile assaults and homicides.

In September, new numbers from Austin Police Department showed violent crime was up 11.1 percent from the same time last year -- crimes like aggravated assaults, robbery and murder.

"I wish we could pinpoint what the one thing was that was driving those violent crimes up, but that's why we're constantly trying to find different ways to enforce ordinances or find different ways of trying to prevent those crimes or to deter those crimes from occurring," said Lt. Patrick Connor.

APD says officers have used recordings from the cameras to solve a number of crimes but the presence of the cameras has not been acting as the deterrent officers had hoped for.