NEW ORLEANS - The city of New Orleans is installing surveillance cameras on many street corners across town and along Mardi Gras parade routes.
NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison had this warning for would-be criminals.
"You won’t be able to travel in this city, anywhere without going down a public street and being caught on a camera or license plate reader," Harrison said.
The city hopes to have 250 cameras installed by the first quarter of this year. About a dozen of them recently went up along the Uptown, Mid-City and Algiers Mardi Gras parade routes.
Most people we talked with support the cameras, but aren't sure how effective they'll be in preventing crime.
"People are going to do what they're going to do regardless, but, that will help," New Orleans resident James Madison said.
"If that's what it's for, to keep people from getting mugged or hit and run, something like that, then it's good," another resident Bob Garner said.
Others admit so many eyes in the sky looking at you can be a little unsettling.
"I think being under sight all the time on the camera, it makes people paranoid," said a man originally from England who goes by the name Jazz. "It makes people scared."
The surveillance system is tied into the city's new real-time monitoring center. There are now cameras in all eight police department districts across the city in so called hotspots. Some of them can be moved as crime trends change.
"We can now track where vehicles went, where people walked and get good descriptions and then match that up to give information to the officers and detectives in the field in real time," Supt. Harrison said.
The cameras are hard to miss. Many of them are lit by flashing red and blue lights.
"It's a little bit Robocop, but it's making people aware," Jazz said.
"Eye-catching, it makes you think about what you're doing," Madison said.
"We hope that will make our parade season that much safer," Harrison said. "People will feel safer.
We will be able to prevent some crimes and certainly we hope to hold people accountable when they do commit crime."
The price tag on the new camera system is $8.5 million.