Newburgh councilman seeks removal of 88 street cameras amid privacy fears
Omari Shakur wants Newburgh to rip out 88 street cameras and spend the money on transit, housing, childcare and job training instead.
A Newburgh councilman is moving to strip the city’s 88 street cameras from the streets, turning a privacy complaint into a direct fight over how much surveillance Orange County’s largest city should keep paying for.
Councilman Omari Shakur is preparing local legislation to remove the Flock cameras, a step he says would save an estimated $254,000. He wants that money redirected to public transportation, childcare subsidies, housing subsidies and job training or apprenticeships for Newburgh residents, framing the issue as a budget choice as much as a civil-liberties one.
The push comes after residents raised alarms that the cameras are spying on them and could be used to pass images to federal authorities looking for undocumented people. Police Chief Branden Rola told the City Council on April 24 that safeguards exist to keep camera photographs out of ICE’s hands, but the concern has not faded. In March, the council unanimously rejected a Clearview AI facial recognition proposal after dozens of residents said it could be used by ICE to racially profile and target people.
The vote now heading toward the council carries added weight because Newburgh’s legislative body has seven elected part-time members, and its regular meetings and work sessions are livestreamed. Under the city charter, the police chief is appointed by the city manager, which means the surveillance fight is playing out in both the council chamber and the city’s administrative chain of command.
Newburgh has relied on surveillance before. In 2016, the city said it could repurpose $152,000 in federal money for its camera system. By 2023, city officials said Operation Bandemic, along with the FBI Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force and New York State Police, helped produce a 64% drop in bullet-to-body shootings and a 22% reduction in all violent crime. That record is likely to be central to any argument from supporters who say the cameras belong in the city’s crime-fighting arsenal.
The technology footprint is already extensive. Atlas of Surveillance reported that the Newburgh Police Department operated 64 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025, a separate but related layer of monitoring that shows how quickly surveillance has become embedded in city policing. Shakur’s proposal now forces a clear test for Newburgh: whether the city wants to lean harder into watching the streets, or pull back before routine public life feels permanently tracked.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
