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Forfeited drug money to fund security update

The county District Attorney’s office is contributing $17,000 in forfeited drug funds to Newberry Estates as part of a $21,000 project to update the housing development’s security system.

The updated system will allow city police and apartment management to view the local apartment buildings, at 2500 Federal Ave., in the Newberry neighborhood of Williamsport from anywhere during an incident.

The District Attorney’s office has spent about over $50,000 in the past three years to improve local security systems in the area, according to Chief County Detective William Weber. Newberry Estates will be the fourth.

City police Capt. Jody Miller spoke to the office about contributing money toward a new system of cameras after police working on a case used the estate’s cameras and realized that many were aging and weren’t in use.

“Our cameras were able to pick up on some things and it was through working with them on that and talking about having some cameras down that the detectives we were working with proposed the idea to Capt. Miller and the DA’s office,” Shannon Nappi, the estates’ on-site manager, said.

Before the District Attorney’s office was able to accept the proposal from city police, Miller used the city’s database to pull up recent incidents, disturbances and calls for service to justify the use of the funds. The office agreed that using the forfeited drug money to increase security in the area was justified, according to Weber, who added that projects like this are used as safety nets in the event of future crimes.

“You hope it doesn’t have to help immediately but the fact is, here is a relief mainly to the residents and to assist law enforcement if they need it,” Weber said.

The new surveillance system will cost a total of $21,000 and will be Newberry Estates’ first update in about seven years, officials said during a news conference Monday morning. Not only will the system allow anyone with an access key to view the cameras over the internet, Nappi said, but it also comes packaged with a virtual patrol service, facial recognition and a search system that can show police and management how many vehicles or people pass the camera along with times.

“If you look at our location, we are tucked away off the beaten path,” Nappi said. “So for people who want to come to this part of our community and have unscrupulous ideas, it’s a deterrent because they are going to be watched and seen and know that the police have remote access.”

Installation of the 10 new cameras is expected to be completed by July 27.

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