Video footage from three different security cameras is what helped lead detectives to the body of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky last week.
Those three cameras are part of thousands placed strategically around New York. And soon, that number will multiply.
Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the city will add 32 traffic cameras in Midtown, as well as E-ZPass readers at 23 intersections.
Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, from the Borough Park neighborhood where Kletzky lived, plans to introduce a bill, dubbed “Leiby’s Initiative,” which will give a $500 tax credit to property owners who install surveillance cameras outside their stores.
Former NYPD officer Mike Codella said video footage is vital to cracking cases. When he patrolled the Lower East Side in the ’90s, he explains, stores rarely had outdoor cameras and routinely reused their VHS tapes, so after five days, the footage was gone.
The video of Kletzky saved police hours of footwork, Codella said — and sped up catching his alleged killer.
By the numbers
There are 400 traffic cameras recording NYC cars.
The MTA has 3,700 cameras on city subways.
The New York City Housing Authority has 6,300 cameras.
Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter @AlisonatMetro
