Sheriff's office wants more cameras in high-crime area

From MyFoxTampaBay.com

TAMPA - It looks like there will be more so-called "eyes in the sky" possibly watching you.

The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office is talking about possibly doubling the number of cameras they have after seeing what's happening in the USF Area.

A year and a half ago, they mounted 19 cameras on street corners known for crime.

"We have solved everything from hit and run, in which we wouldn't have had a clue about the vehicle involved, to armed robberies, even murders," Major J.R. Burton, from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, told FOX 13 on Monday.

Burton says crime has dropped 30 percent in the area around the cameras, and about half of that in the area overall. Burton also says an sweep of street level criminals called "Pandora's Box" a few months ago helped bring down the stats as well.

Not surprisingly, the sheriff's office likes what it is seeing. It wants to eventually install another twenty or so cameras. Some of them around Nuccio Parkway, just outside Ybor City, which is also known as a high crime area.