Anyone thinking of causing trouble at Bishop Brossart High School should beware - Alexandria police can see you.

In the past week the police completed an Internet link from the computers in their cruisers to the security cameras on the school premises.

That means police can view the school's security camera footage anytime and anywhere from their cruisers.

By fall, police hope to have connections with security cameras in Campbell County Middle School, St. Mary's and Campbell Ridge Elementary, said Chief Mike Ward.

"It is a safety issue," Ward said. "Having the availability to pull up security camera images if a problem in the school arises creates another level of safety."

Alexandria police are the first in the state to have a mobile link to school security cameras that can be accessed anywhere, said Ward, also second vice president of the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police.

The police can view footage from nine security cameras outside Bishop Brossart. The police plan to have views from seven more cameras inside the building by fall.

The cameras will be placed in hallways and cafeterias, not classrooms or offices, Ward said.

"Our focus, when we talked about doing this, was a right to privacy," Ward said. "If the school puts a camera in an office or classroom, that is their business. We won't have access to that. There is a higher level of expectation of privacy in a classroom or office than in a common area. We are looking for the common areas."

Brossart Principal Tom Seither could not be reached for comment.

The security cameras didn't cost the police department anything and use existing wireless Internet access in the cruisers and the school's security camera system.

"It will be a deterrent to vandalism and anything that could go wrong at the school," said Lt. George Schreiner, with the Alexandria police.

The presence of the security cameras at the high school stopped vandals who had been tagging the gym and brick marquee in front, Schreiner said.

Nine months ago, the Alexandria Police Department became the first in the state to use Blackberry personal digital assistants to run license checks and criminal data, Ward said.

"I don't look at our size as a disadvantage," Ward said of the department, which has 14 officers. "I look at it as an advantage. The bigger you are, the more bureaucratic red tape there is.