ST. CLOUD -- The St. Cloud Police Department could soon have a new tool to help them fight crime. The department is planning to buy a new trailer camera surveillance system.

Assistant Police Chief Jeff Oxton says it will give them the ability to put a camera in parts of town that they haven't been able to up until now.

It has a telescoping tower that will go up and raise video camera systems up above the ground so that it can capture a large area with really high-quality video capabilities.  And so it is something we can bring anywhere and set up and add a video presence to that event or area that we want to cover.

Oxton says one example would be to have it at Summertime By George.

He says, because it is very visible and well-marked, they could also park it in an area of town that has had a spike in crime as a preventive measure as well.

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Oxton says video is becoming more important in solving crimes.

So this does do just that, it gives us the ability to put cameras where we don't have them, where maybe we don't even have power sources that we could put cameras up, we can put this up.  What I really like about it is the deterrent effect also of having it be very visible that there is video recording going on.

The camera data is stored locally on the trailer and is remotely accessible.

The St. Cloud City Council is being asked to approve the $60,000 purchase during their meeting Monday.  Oxton says the trailer could be here and be in use in just a few weeks.

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