Durham resident Bill Anderson is fighting crime and he is doing it with nothing more than a video camera.
Anderson has shot more than 30 videos of alleged drug dealers, illegal vendors and trespassers breaking the law in plain sight. Using his website, billtv.net, to spread the word, Anderson hopes to pressure the Durham Police Department to crack down on wrongdoers.
“I think my website will help Durham recognize the problem and allow citizens to assist by recognizing violations and reporting them to authorities,” said Anderson, who co-leads Durham District 2’s division of Partners Against Crime, a community organization that seeks to promote collaboration between residents and police.
Although the crimes he seeks to prevent are generally minor, Anderson said their consequences are far-reaching, noting that illegal vendors take away business from locals and make government less efficient by failing to pay taxes.
“Vending without a permit and trespass[ing] are pretty minor charges, and most of the subjects are doing both,” he said. “[But vendors like] the folks who rented vans to sell flowers on Valentine’s Day [whom I filmed] are taking dollars out of town and competing unfairly against local florists who pay rent, taxes and contribute to the local economy.”
Anderson said many of the alleged criminals he has filmed are not from Durham but instead come to the Bull City from elsewhere to take advantage of lax law enforcement of “minor laws.”
Many of the videos on his website feature subjects who quickly become angry once confronted. Still, Anderson remains calm and insists he is only trying to enforce the laws while the alleged criminals shout profanity and accusations.
“I don’t hope for confrontation—just communication and hopefully compliance with local laws,” he said. “I have run into many good people who just didn’t know the laws and appreciated someone explaining them.”
Public Information Officer Kammie Michael wrote in an e-mail that DPD is aware of Anderson and is taking his efforts seriously.
“Police commanders have been in contact with Mr. Anderson,” she wrote. “Deputy Chief [Steve] Mihaich spoke at the PAC 2 meeting and Durham Businesses Against Crime meetings where Mr. Anderson discussed his videos.”
In a Feb. 13 article in The Durham News, Mihaich said a lack of resources forces DPD to pick its battles.
“My priority is violent crime and property crime,” he told TDN. “I wish I had the resources to be able to [enforce civil infractions] on a daily basis. I don’t.”
According to the article, DPD investigated a few of the vendors who Anderson said he believed were dealing drugs and uncovered no evidence to support the claim.
Sophomore Charles West said he does not think Durham suffers from more crime than other cities.
“I think Durham faces the same social ills that plague most urban areas,” he said. “Generally, the Durham police do their job in helping curb crime and I also think that [the] Duke police are genuinely concerned about the students.”
Despite the hard work that goes into producing his videos, Anderson said he feels it is his duty to continue documenting minor crimes—which he says no one else is trying to stop—with his video camera in order to persuade DPD and Durham residents to take them more seriously.
Anderson has posted at the top of his website a quote from Edmund Burke that he says encapsulates his philosophy of morality: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.