Community Corner

Mom to Council: Security Cameras at Tier Garage Should Be Priority

Shona Inggs of Colt Road questioned council about security measures at city parking facilities in light of incident involving nine-year-old daughter.

Shona Inggs, a resident of Colt Road, questioned Common Council Tuesday night as to whether or not there were plans to install better security cameras at the Tier Garage or elsewhere downtown.

Inggs said her nine-year-old daughter was seriously injured March 25 when, while she was walking in the alley next to the garage behind , she was struck by a few pipe couplings that they believed fell from the top level of the four-level garage. Ingg's daughter suffered a fractured skull, concussion and laceration to the head, but police and EMS personnel who responded to the scene determined the pipes has actually been thrown from the top level of the Tier Garage.

"My daughter had very serious injuries and you know what, she could have been killed," Inggs said Tuesday night.

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Inggs asked Tuesday night why the city was budgeting for equipment for paid shopper parking in the capital plan and not security cameras. Inggs said police have been unable to obtain evidence regarding the March 25 incident because the camera is out of date and uses VHS technology.

"It's just kind of ironic to me that I happen to be at this meeting and you're talking about your lovely [TV] cameras," Inggs said pointing to the five new cameras recently installed to enhance the television broadcast of council meetings.

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Police Chief Robert Lucid said when police initially responded to the scene a search of the area revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

"There were no individuals in the area that were found to be responsible," he said.

After a subsequent search of the garage, Lucid said police found a plastic Home Depot bag with PVC piping similar to that which struck the girl. A receipt in the bag from Home Depot in Vauxhall led police to the person who purchased the items; investigators determined that the bag had been stolen from an unlocked car.

"We are working to see if there is any identification that we can make through any potential witnesses or through any physical evidence from the scene," Lucid said.

Lucid said it is likely the suspects wanted to see if the Home Depot bag contained any chemical-based substance they "huff" in order to get high. The chief said that city residents need to be cognisant of locking their cars. This week's police blotter reported that , two of which were taken from cars while parked in the Broad Street Parking Garage.

The police report from the incident said slight damage to the pvc pipe is "indicative of being thrown from atop" the garage "possibily striking the roof of The Toy Professor" before hitting the victim.

In regards to the footage from the camera Lucid said the technology does not allow for facial recognition and is of a poor quality.

"Unfortunately the images that we tried to collect from those cameras were really not terribly useful in our investigation," he said.

Director Beth Kinney said she and Lucid have been working on a plan to install a network of security cameras downtown. The venture will be partially funded through a grant from Summit Downtown, Inc. But Kinney said the project will have to go out to bid and just as important as the cameras is the network to supply live feeds to the emergency response dispatchers and a computer network to store the digital files so they may be reviewed for evidence if needed.

Teen activity at the garage was an issue raised in the weeks following the murder of 47-year-old Abelino Mazariego in July. The Tier Garage is less than 400 feet from the Summit Promenade park where Mazareigo was . Several area teens have been charged in connection with what Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow called a

"How many more accidents have to happen?" Inggs asked.

Lucid said police officers do routinely patrol all of the city's parking garages and other ares where people are likely to congregate. Skateboarding on the ramps in and out of the garage has been an isue for many years, Lucid said, and the garage itself is enticing to teens because it is isolated and often hard to determine if people are there.

Councilman Steve Murphy also acknowledged that while parking attendants do patrol the city's municipal parking garages they aren't working during the evening when most of the teen activity is occurring because parking is free after 6 p.m. The topic of allocation of police resources has also been a bone of contention among council since the murder.

"I'm very sorry of what your daughter had to go through and the pain that she experienced," Murphy said. "I can only hope that if we have a council out in a parking garage that we surely have it operable and functional so that we can review these types of incidents going forward.

Lucid said even with cameras there is no way to fully deter illicit activity or even prevent it.

The victim was treated at Overlook Hospital and the police investigation is still ongoing.


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