Officials Use Anti-Terror Cameras to Stop Golf Ball Bombardment
May 16, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Golf balls are bombarding the Port of Everett and anti-terrorism cameras are being trained on a residential neighborhood to hunt down the source.
Port officials believe someone on Rucker Hill is whacking golf balls down the hill onto port property, endangering dozens of workers and millions of dollars worth of equipment and cargo.
“We’re trying to use any means possible to stop it, aside from posting somebody in the field of fire all day and night,” said Ed Madura, a port security official.
The port says the flying golf balls constitute a threat to personal safety. Pointing video surveillance cameras toward the likely source is an appropriate use of the equipment, port officials say.
In the eyes of at least one resident in the Rucker Hill neighborhood southwest of downtown, swiveling the cameras from the fence line to the neighborhood is an invasion of privacy.
“Hitting golf balls is a problem, but if they turn their cameras up on the neighborhood and spy on us, that’s a bigger problem,” said David Mascarenas, a neighborhood watchdog who has for years fought the port to improve the community’s access to public land.
