Local Group Demands Council Reject Request to Upgrade Police Cameras

About an hour before Monday’s City Council meeting, a previously unheard of group called on the Pasadena City Council to reject a bid for upgraded cameras for the Pasadena Police Department’s helicopters.

“Pasadena Privacy for All is calling on the Pasadena City Council to reject a proposed no-bid acquisition of upgraded cameras for aerial surveillance on Pasadena residents,” the group said in a statement.

Pasadena Privacy for All is a task force made up of the ACLU of Southern California, Pasadenans Organizing for Progress, National Day Laborers Organizing Network, and other civil rights and social justice activists.

According to a city staff report, the current cameras are antiquated and require about $40,000 in annual maintenance. The latest advancements in technology, the IR cameras currently on the market perform with better Hi-Def imagery and zoom capability. This offers flight crews much greater detail and increases stand-off ranges, which in turn decreases the helicopter’s noise signature.

“This allows us to do better and safer police work,” said Pasadena Police Chief John Perez. “We’re not even sure if the camera we have now is still being serviced.”

According to the statement, the purchase is bad policy and a misuse of available funding to address the economic and health crisis facing Pasadena.
According to the city’s finance director said the city faces substantial economic losses due to the pandemic. At a time when the community members are struggling to pay rent and are losing jobs at unprecedented rates, the Police Department’s bloated $89 million budget is being used to purchase unnecessary and invasive technology to surveil members of the community.

“Instead of diverting critical resources to providing for the social welfare of community members during the worst human and economic crisis we have faced for generations, the Police Departments is asking for a no-bid contract to upgrade surveillance cameras at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Mohammad Tajsar, a member of Pasadena Privacy for All and a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. “That is a slap in the face to residents of Pasadena struggling with the fall out of this pandemic.”