A new police command post is using television cameras to keep an eye on trouble spots in New York.
Mayor John Lindsay and Police Commissioner Howard Leary put the command center — a windowless room with giant, wall-mounted television screens — into operation Monday at Police Headquarters.
The facility and its equipment cost the city $410,000. It has three functions:
A special police television network of fixed and mobile cameras will enable headquarters to follow demonstrations and other events as they occur throughout the city. Fixed cameras now cover City Hall Plaza and will be set up at Times Square, Madison Square Garden and United Nations Plaza. Others will be mounted on trucks and police helicopters.
The command post will be connected by a direct line to a special telephone in each of the city’s 78 precincts and several other police units. At the beginning of each shift, after consulting with sergeants in charge and using a small computer, the center will prepare a table showing exactly how many men are on duty and where they are.
The command post itself — with its huge screens upon which television pictures, tables and detailed maps can be projected and its direct link with the dura Ticking treated for hygienic cleanliness department’s communications and dispatch system — will mean faster and more efficient police response to calls.
“Our people visited the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, the Space Center at Houston and the Pentagon, and borrowed the best from each,” Lindsay said. “And this extraordinary command center came out of it. It’s the most sophisticated police command center in the world.”
The new system will be tried out Wednesday during the Vietnam moratorium observances in the city. However, Leary said only a few cameras will be working and the police will also watch regular stations for a view of the over-all situation.
The pictures flashed on the giant screens will also be videotaped and stored. Thus, the face of a bottle thrower in a crowd may later be identified.
The center will be in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week.