Opelousas Police to install 47 surveillance cameras in high-crime areas across town

The Opelousas Board of Aldermen has agreed to provide $140,000 to pay for additional surveillance cameras that police say will aid investigators in high-crime areas of the city.

Police Chief Martin McLendon told the Board during a meeting last week that the 47 cameras will be spread across Opelousas, providing officers with live footage at 14 sites.

“Some areas will have four to eight cameras when these sites become operational,” said McLendon, who will leave office effective Dec. 31 after serving the department for 31 years.

Financing for the cameras approved by the Board will at first originate from American Rescue Act funding that was previously received by the city, McLendon said.

McLendon said the ARA expenditure for the cameras will eventually be repaid to the city when the police department obtains a state grant that McLendon said has been obtained by State Representative Dustin Miller and State Senator Gerald Boudreaux.

Purchasing the cameras McLendon said, is an important step in attempting to resolve crimes.

“They are one of the best tools and they will provide (police chief-elect Graig LeBlanc) with some tools that will assist him. It’s necessary and it will work,” said McLendon.

The city administration McLendon said, will initially pay for the cameras.

“The ARA money will pay that bill and the city will get the receipt. Then the money that is coming from the state will reimburse the city. What we are really asking is that the city advance (the police department) the money to pay for these cameras,” McLendon said.

The Opelousas Housing Authority McLendon added, has agreed to pay 90 percent of the costs for the cameras to become operational.

Throughout much of 2022, the police department had to contend with a sharp increase in gun violence and homicides that have occurred primarily inside several Opelousas public housing developments.

Police according to McLendon, are still investigating a double homicide that occurred earlier this month when two women were shot inside the Ina Claire public housing.

Then in November McLendon announced the arrests of three males along with a juvenile suspect in connection with the murder of a 15-year boy who was walking with other people on North Main Street.

In a separate incident earlier this year, two adults were killed inside public housing on the north side of the city, while two more males were shot and killed inside the Ina Claire area during unrelated incidents, police said.

“People in this city are crying out for help, crying out for relief. It is extremely necessary to purchase these cameras and when we do, it will work,” McLendon added.

At an Aug. 12 meeting in 2021, McLendon told the Board that Crime Fighters of Louisiana, LLC., had agreed to pay for 20 cameras that McLendon said would become operational by Jan. 1, 2022.

During the meeting last week McLendon said the cameras that the Opelousas Police Department had been placed on a waiting list by Crime Fighters of Louisiana program.

This article originally appeared on Opelousas Daily World: Opelousas Police hope 47 new cameras will help reduce crime