SIMSBURY -- Soon there could be more eyes on Simsbury. It’s a plan to prevent crime and increase safety and the town is considering adding security cameras to light poles on Iron Horse Boulevard.
“We are all too aware of the tragic murder of Melissa Millan last year and we never want to see anything like that happen again,” said Don Massey, the Simsbury man who started the Iron Horse Security Project Inc.
Melissa Millan, 54, was stabbed while out for a run on the popular Farmington Canal Heritage Trail. She was killed on Nov. 20, 2014. Last month, a year after her murder, FBI agents and Simsbury Police spent three days combing more than half a mile of Iron Horse Boulevard, the trail, and the park in the area where Millan is believed to have been killed.
Massey said cameras on light poles could have helped police. He started raising money already and has town and police officials supporting him. There are 45 poles along Iron Horse Boulevard that are owned by Eversource. Massy and the town already have the green light from Eversource to install the cameras on the poles. “Each one could easily take two cameras,” said Massey. “That would give us 270 degrees of coverage, and we also have devised a plan to include some poles in the median, so we would have two views of the boulevard.”
Purchasing and installing the cameras is estimated at $65,000 and the police force would have access to monitor them for crime.
“They are there for the soul purpose of making sure people realize that this is a safe place to come and crime will not be tolerated,” said Massey. He added that the hope is that if there’s knowledge that cameras are there, it might give folks a second thought before anything bad happens.