ORLANDO, Fla. – A tool to help fight crime in downtown Orlando may not be fully functioning. After a 22-year-old woman was killed by an officer's stray bullet, Local 6 requested Innovative Response to Improve Safety, or I.R.I.S., video.
The initiative put more than 100 surveillance cameras around Orlando and Orange County, but we're told some have been broken for weeks.
The cameras may have helped show exactly what happened when officers confronted an armed man outside of a bar. It should have captured the gunman, Kody Roach, even before police responded because they are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by an officer, but Orlando police say there is no record.
The cameras perched atop light posts watch what happens 24 hours a day at 360 degrees. A sergeant with the Orlando Police Department told Local 6 it is a citywide problem after a repair worker cut the fiber cord, but the spokesperson told Local 6, "Unfortunately, both cameras are (and have been) down due to a fiber issue."
Local 6 is told Pine Street and Church Street cameras were impacted. On Tuesday, that surveillance system may have proven critical.
"To protect us, that's what it's really there for and then there's a shooting and there's nothing to help with it, that's a disgrace," said resident Lauren Gold.
Ben Ward works in downtown and told Local 6, "It's a false sense of security."
For people in downtown, the cameras provide a level of security hoping that they work to keep crime down, never questioning if they work at all.
Orlando police said a request has been made to repair the fiber but it's not owned by OPD.