Community leaders stand behind proposed North Charleston surveillance plan

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Activists wanted to make clear that they are in favor of putting more cameras throughout North Charleston because they believe the initiative would help save lives.

“We need the blood to stop by any means necessary,” Pastor Thomas Dixon said.

Community leaders are showing support for North Charleston Police Department’s plan to implement more than 700 surveillance cameras throughout the city.

“We want to make it perfectly clear that the community,” Dixon said, “those who actually live in the most violent, gang-ridden, drug saturated areas of North Charleston, we want to make it clear that we want these cameras.”

Activists say this plan has caused division amongst North Charleston neighbors recently after the Charleston Democratic Socialists of America penned a petition in opposition of the proposal.

“Why start a petition?” activist Justin Hunt said. “Who’s idea was that? Because it’s affecting your side? Our side is in World War III if we’re being honest.”

They say those opposing the new cameras don’t want them because they don’t live in areas plagued by gun violence.

“They don’t live with the everyday trauma that we experience in our community,” Dixon said, “that our children experience in our community, that our seniors experience. That’s not a reality for them, and right now they’re speaking from an alternate reality perspective.”

And it’s the perspective that many at today’s press conference live on a daily basis that they wish others understood.

“Walk a mile in our shoes,” Shamekei Gray from the Waylyn Heart Team said. “Come visit the neighborhoods. If you really want to see, come sit at night on the park and hear what we hear.”

Proponents of the new surveillance system say cameras will be beneficial in other instances of crime as well.

“Memorial Day Weekend,” Elvin Speights said, “a 4-year-old boy was hit by a car that left the scene. All we have from that accident is Ring cameras in the neighborhood. The car left the neighborhood and turned on Ashley Phosphate and disappeared. Wouldn’t it have been nice if we had cameras up there?”

Currently, the petition in opposition to the plan has more than 350 signatures.