New York state officials warned the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority about the risk of security camera malfunctions on subway systems years before the shooting at a Brooklyn station Tuesday.
The problem was spotlighted after authorities were unable to get a positive ID on the shooter due to malfunctioning cameras.
CBS News found two inspections by state officials, one in 2018 and one in 2019, where officials warned the MTA about the risk of malfunctions and determined that the MTA failed to make sure that thousands of security cameras were maintained and repaired. The MTA said that it was making "aggressive" moves.
The state comptroller’s office found in a 2018 audit that reviewed all 223 cameras at 10 subway stations over the course of about four years that less than one-third of the planned 4,219 checks were performed.
The state comptroller’s office follow-up report issued next year noted that the previous report "determined that preventive maintenance was not performed within the scheduled frequency levels set by Transit … moreover, when a problem was identified, repairs were not always timely."
The 2019 report did note that the MTA implemented some of the audit’s recommendations and "made progress in addressing the problems" found in the initial inspection.
MTA CEO Janno Lieber told "CBS Mornings" on Wednesday that while there appeared to be a "server problem" involving at least one camera located near a turnstile at the station where the shooting took place, "the bigger issue is there's so much video evidence from all of the stations on this line that there are images that are going to be found."
Lieber added that the "enormous range" of security footage from the incident comes from roughly 2,500 cameras situated on the subway line where the shooting happened.
Mike German, a former FBI agent, told CBS that he wasn’t surprised to find out that the cameras weren’t working.
"It's very easy after an event that's horrifying and scary to the public for policymakers to reach for that silver bullet solution, 'We'll put cameras in all of the subway stations,' but that initial expense doesn't necessarily provide or explain all of the resources that will have to go into that kind of surveillance," he said.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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