MELBOURNE, Fla. – One of the major stories in Melbourne over the last few years has been safety downtown.
In 2022, at a popular night spot that’s no longer there called “Off the Traxx,” Alain Noel was killed on the dance floor when police say the 34-year-old was shot in a feud about “club turf.”
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The following year, another late-night shooting a on a busy weekend downtown sent people running for their lives, as well.
The city vowed to find solutions, and now, more than $100,000 has been spent on a dozen new security cameras.
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Mayor Paul Alfrey told News 6 Reporter James Sparvero he believes the cameras are making downtown safer.
“They’re good to not only document events or if something happens, you can go back and review, but you can see live-time of what’s going on,” Alfrey said. “It’s definitely something that we needed to document more.”
The mayor also addressed criticism of the cameras from citizens who are calling them an overreach by the city.
“Anywhere you go there’s cameras — if you go in any store or wherever you go,” Alfrey said. “Matter of fact, everybody has a camera on their cellphone so there is no expectation of privacy in the downtown.”
Alfrey said downtown is now the safest it’s been in years.
“Oh, absolutely and it’s only getting safer,” he said. “I mean, with the more police patrols. You can see the police officers on bikes, the cameras.”
The owner of The Tea House downtown supported the mayor’s opinion on the cameras.
Erika Pena said when she opened her store, she had to remove graffiti.
“I had a couple concerns because I did get graffiti up on my shop, and we had to paint the walls and everything outside in order to get rid of it,” she explained.
Pena said she believes the cameras will make downtown safer, as well.
“I do think that we need more cameras in downtown,” she said. “I know that when we had the graffitis going on, they didn’t have enough cameras to catch the two guys that did it so I think more cameras will be good.”
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