ROCKFORD — The Police Department is about a week away from buying high-tech surveillance cameras to monitor the city’s most crime-infested neighborhoods.

The cameras come to the department through a $350,000 grant from Rockford Area CrimeStoppers awarded to the department last year.

Most of the infrastructure needed to use the cameras is already in place, although administrators still are considering which of two vendors to purchase the cameras from.

“We can’t afford to put an officer on every street corner,” Police Chief Chet Epperson said today at the annual CrimeStoppers luncheon at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center on Bell School Road. “But we can use these cameras to help reduce crime.”

The city already is using two video cameras in various crime “hot spots.” Epperson said the new cameras are more sophisticated and will be perched in areas where police combat illegal drugs, including an area bound by the Rock River to Kishwaukee Street and from 15th Avenue to Walnut Street. They’ll also be used in a zone bound by Jefferson Street on the south, Whitman Street on the north, Kilburn Avenue on the west and the Rock River on the east.

The new cameras will be portable but have to be mounted on permanent structures. Signals from the cameras will be sent to computer monitors in the city’s Public Safety Building.

Epperson said the cameras can be monitored remotely by police officials. The cameras also can record, so feeds can be reviewed later for investigative and evidentiary purposes.

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