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Article Courtesy of Coral
Springs Neighborhood Online
By Leon Fooksman
Published January 5, 2023
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CORAL SPRINGS – Kensington Glen is a Coral Springs community with 258 homes with
no security gates or a guard house.
But the community between Coral Springs Drive and Coral Ridge Drive just north
of Wiles Road does have an “invisible gate.”
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That’s the way Gil
Sternbach describes the neighborhood’s new security cameras
which are connected to Coral Springs Police Department’s
Real Time Crime Center.
“I now feel like our community has security,” said Sternbach,
who is president of Kensington Glen’s homeowners
association.
This spring, the community installed four solar-powered
cameras to read license plates and capture images of cars
and people going in and out of the two roads leading into
the development.
It’s one of a few residential areas in Coral Springs -- and
among schools and businesses in the city -- that city police
officers can access with cameras through Real Time Crime
Center to find suspects in crimes and other investigations.
Kensington Glen is part of the police department’s “Blue
Shield” campaign intended to encourage communities and
businesses to connect cameras on their streets and in their
shops and offices to the department’s digital network in
order for police to monitor crimes in progress and solve
them. |
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One of the new security cameras at Kensington Glen in
Coral Springs.
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For instance, if there’s reports of car break-ins in Kensington Glen, police can
access data captured by Kensington Glen’s cameras and then search license plates
of potential criminals who drove into the neighborhood or look at other images
for clues on the suspects, Sternbach said.
And all of this can now be done remotely, instantly, and in real-time, he added.
“We can use this to solve crime as well as serve as a deterrent for criminals to
come here,” he said.
Ellen Westerdale, vice president of Kensington Glen’s homeowners association,
said she was a little skeptical at first about installing the cameras, which
cost each homeowner $40 a year, but she supported it once she saw what the
cameras can do.
“People cut through our community to get to somewhere else all the time. So if
someone did something bad and they cut through our area to get away, these
cameras will pick them up and that’s a good thing,” she said.
Westerdale, who jogs in the community in the early morning hours, said she hopes
signs posted about the new cameras will “scare away” those wanting to break into
cars or homes.
“I haven’t heard of any crimes since we got these cameras,” she said.
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