DALLAS - The best view of downtown isn't from any skyscraper or distant perch but rather a windowless office in the basement of City Hall.
"Yeah, but we've got windows to the world right here," said Dick Hickman, a retired Dallas policeman, who came back to work at the department three years ago.
Across the hall from DPD's secured 911 Center, one-story below ground, is a hi-tech control room where officers and retirees monitor downtown cameras that capture crimes and witness accidents.
The latest dramatic images were captured on Thursday when a silver sedan, spinning out of control on Commerce Street, slides into a light pole and narrowly misses a passing pedestrian.
The department's Camera Unit, as it's known, started three years ago with 47-cameras. Today, there are 115 that observe public places in downtown, Uptown, and Jubilee Park.
"The most disturbing [video captured] was the young man having a seizure and the suspect came up to him and acted as if he was going to help him and took property from him," said Lt. Ben Nabors, from Dallas Police.
In that instance, a solider collapsed with a seizure outside Dallas' Greyhound Bus station. The cameras recorded a bystander walking up to him, leaning over and removing his wallet, as the helpless victim shook uncontrollably on the ground.
Fortunately, Dallas police officers caught the suspect the next day when he returned and wore the same jogging suit seen on camera.
"While these officers would love to be there and be hands-on, in a sense they are because they are giving intelligence to the patrol officers who are responding and actually helping them make the arrests," Lt. Nabors added.
The statistics are startling from the relatively new DPD unit.
Dallas' cameras led to more than 1,142 arrests in 2008. Last year, the figure rose to 1,536 arrests. During the first ten months of 2010, the cameras have helped capture 2,290 people breaking the law.
One of the first accidents the cameras caught was a Chrysler running a red light outside Federal Court and plowing through a motorcyclist.
Remarkably, the biker stood up on video and walked out of frame.
Downtown Dallas, Incorporated and the West End Association moved DPD into its new hi-tech control room last month from a crowded hallway nearby where the unit had worked. The new facility helps officers keep an eye on the city even when they aren't always in sight.
Email: jwhitely@wfaa.com
