Tell the City of Berkeley to approve security cameras near campus
Flock Safety camera (image from the Flock Safety website)
SAFEBEARS CALLS ON BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL TO APPROVE ADDITIONAL SECURITY CAMERAS — ESPECIALLY IN STUDENT LOCATIONS LIKE DURANT/TELEGRAPH
UPDATE: THE RESOLUTION PASSED!
Well done, SafeBears! 🔥🔥
WHAT: “Revised External Fixed Surveillance Camera Locations and Vendor Transition” (Item # 11)
WHEN: City Council will vote on APPROVED this resolution in its entirety Tuesday, March 18, 2025. An effort to remove the Southside camera FAILED.
WHY SAFEBEARS SUPPORTS THIS: Cameras work — both to catch perpetrators of crime and to deter wrongdoers from acting in the first place. Cameras also aid in prosecutions, ensuring fair and appropriate consequences for criminal conduct. The responsible use of technology is especially important in high-crime areas like Berkeley that have understaffed police departments.
HOW YOU CAN STEPPED UP TO HELP:
EMAIL council in support of this resolution by Monday, March 17th at noon (the link goes to a pre-filled email, just add your name; or even better, write a few personalized sentences) ✅ 60 emails sent!
(If you don’t want to use a pre-filled email, scroll to the end of this blog post to get info to create your own email)
SPEAK in support at the 3/18/25 City Council meeting by Zoom or phone or in person ✅ 2 SafeBears speakers, which was crucial, as public comments were 2-1 AGAINST the resolution
READ the agenda for the March 18th meeting (and get the Zoom link to participate)
✅ The City Council's approval of this resolution (by an 8-1 vote) is just the first step in getting these cameras in place. We will keep our members updated as we learn more.
Read the SafeBears email to City Council supporting this resolution
Dear Mayor Ishii and Councilmembers Kesarwani, Taplin, Bartlett, Tregub, O’Keefe, Blackaby, Lunaparra and Humbert:
We are parents of UC Berkeley undergraduate students and officers of SafeBears, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of parents, students and community members working to make California’s flagship university safer for students.
SafeBears urges the Council to approve the resolution “Revised External Fixed Surveillance Camera Locations and Vendor Transition” (Item #11 on the action calendar for the March 18, 2025, meeting). In particular, SafeBears strongly supports the installation of fixed cameras in student-centric neighborhoods, such as the intersection of Durant and Telegraph in Southside, as well as locations downtown, where construction continues apace of student housing, both university owned and private.
While all urban college students contend with crime, SafeBears was founded because UC Berkeley students face a disproportionate threat. This unsafe environment hampers young people’s ability to learn, grow and thrive at the world’s best public university – and, quite frankly, leads some promising high school and community college students to enroll elsewhere.
UC Berkeley is consistently at or near the top of the leaderboard for campus crime, as measured by data collected pursuant to the federal Clery Act. Comparing crime statistics at UC Berkeley to other urban universities like UCLA, USC, Columbia and the University of Washington, Cal students face an outsized threat from violent crimes like robbery and aggravated assault. The Clery data, which include only serious crimes on or adjacent to university property, naturally reflect crime in the City of Berkeley as a whole. According to FBI data, Berkeley has a crime index of 1 – meaning that 99% of municipalities in the US have lower per capita crime than Berkeley.
SafeBears supports this resolution because cameras work – both to catch perpetrators of crime and to deter wrongdoers from acting in the first place. Cameras also aid in prosecutions, ensuring fair and appropriate consequences for criminal conduct.
The City of Berkeley Police Department credited license plate reader technology with helping to identify the man who repeatedly fired a gun near UC Berkeley in October 2024. During that incident, the sixth instance of confirmed gunfire on or near UC Berkeley property last year, the alleged perpetrator’s actions placed Cal students in grave danger:
The gunman confronted four UC Berkeley students on Telegraph Avenue, “pulled a gun from his waistband, pointed it at the students, told them to run and fired a round into the air,” according to BPD, as reported by local news outlet The Berkeley Scanner.
The gunman fired a shot that penetrated an occupied bedroom of a Southside UC Berkeley residence hall that houses first-year Regents Scholars and recruited athletes.
The above is just one of many examples of ALPR “hits” leading to arrests. Fixed cameras too are valuable law enforcement tools: when a Cal student was robbed and punched in the face several months ago, the entire incident was captured by UC Berkeley cameras, to cite one recent example.
Responsible use of technology to deter, apprehend and prosecute is especially important considering the overall law enforcement environment in Berkeley, in particular the staffing shortages at BPD and UCPD. As of February 2024, BPD was staffed with just 151 sworn officers out of 181 authorized, compared with 174 sworn in 2020. UCPD has 49 sworn officers out of 55 authorized, compared with 70 sworn in 2014 and 80 sworn in 2007.
According to the National Institute of Justice, “police deter crime by increasing the perception that wrongdoers will be caught and punished … with the certainty of being caught a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment.” Bad actors throughout the Bay Area almost certainly know they won’t encounter many police patrols in Berkeley, nor are they likely to be stopped by police for traffic infractions. ALPRs and fixed cameras, therefore, are crucial tools to challenge the perception that Berkeley is a soft target for robbery, retail theft and the like.
Finally, SafeBears asks the Council, when making its decision on this resolution, to keep in mind that many UC Berkeley students lack a political voice. In fact, that is part of the reason that Cal parents began organizing around safety, eventually forming SafeBears. Many Cal students don’t vote in Berkeley, for a variety of reasons. Some cannot vote because they are international students or non-citizen Americans. Others vote in their home states or at the California addresses where they graduated high school or community college. Still others commute from elsewhere in the Bay because they can’t afford to live in Berkeley. All of this is to say that no one should take a failure to vote or to speak on public safety issues as an indication that UC Berkeley students don’t care about the high levels of crime and public disorder they encounter as they earn their degrees, or are satisfied with the City’s public safety response.
In sum, the proposed Flock Safety cameras, when used within the parameters of City Council policy, are a cost-effective and responsible method to deter, apprehend and prosecute wrongdoers – and ultimately lower crime and improve public safety in Berkeley. The Council should approve this resolution.
Respectfully,
SafeBears Inc.
Steve Ravellette, president & board member
Victoria Cole, vice president & board member
Melissa Kerpel, secretary & board member
Click to send your own email to Berkeley City Council
Or, create your own email without using the pre-filled form
To: council@berkeleyca.gov
cc: contact@safebears.org
Subject line: Comment on “Revised External Fixed Surveillance Camera Locations and Vendor Transition” (Item #11 on action calendar for March 18, 2025, meeting)
Body of email:
Dear Mayor and Councilmembers:
I am the parent of a UC Berkeley student and a supporter of the SafeBears mission to make Berkeley safer for students. I support the above resolution for the reasons stated in the comment submitted to Council by the SafeBears board.
