[media-credit name=’JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]

As the Mifflin Street
Block Party nears, the Madison Police Department said Wednesday they are
increasing the number of cameras to monitor the celebration May 3.

According to MPD
Captain Mary Schauf, police will move cameras from State Street and place them
throughout Mifflin Street. The cameras have zooming capabilities and high
resolution and could be used for evidence and investigative purposes, she
added.

“They want to
know what’s going on, how many people are out there,” said Ald. Mike
Verveer, whose District 4 includes Mifflin Street. “Secondary use is for
investigative use if something of criminal nature does happen.”

In 2005, UW football
player Booker Stanley was arrested and suspended from the team after being
involved in physical altercations with two different people during the party.
The cameras would help not only identify the location of an incident like this,
but also provide evidence during prosecution, Verveer added.

Police and fire
department officials will be monitoring the street from the MFD’s
administrative building on West Johnson Street, and on-site officers will be
notified if a problem is spotted, Schauf said.

Despite high numbers
of young drinkers, underage drinking will not be MPD’s main concern when
monitoring the block party.

“I just can’t
imagine that the cops would even consider the expense of putting these cameras
to help in writing alcohol citation,” Verveer said. “That doesn’t
make sense, and I’m sure if they were using the cameras for this purpose —
that would be silly.”

Last year’s block
party had a spike of more than 100 in the number of arrests, most of which were
alcohol-related. The party had a reported attendance of approximately 10,000.

This year, police are
hoping to better locate cameras throughout the street and use them to identify
and deal with possible incidents during the block party.

Though the number of
cameras is yet to be determined, Verveer said police are going to place them on
key corners and light polls. Last year’s party had one camera on top of the
Metropolitan Place condominium towers, on the corner of Mifflin and Broom
streets, but visibility was limited because trees blocked certain areas of the
street.

According to Schauf,
MPD won’t have any “fancy” equipment beside the cameras, but should
have a couple hundred officers on the streets to identify underage drinking and
other problems, like glass bottles or loud music.