City’s video surveillance is another tool for the police department

Published 1:58 pm Wednesday, May 29, 2013

They sit silently, stoically, high on poles and under overhangs, forever watching, unflinching and unblinking.

But together, the city’s video surveillance system at the Metro Transit Center, parks and other city buildings are a constant workforce for the police department, recording all they see and aiding in both evidence collection and in some cases, such as last week’s shooting in Liberty Park, helping as a real-time investigative arm of the department.

The city’s camera force, which numbers about 60, has been in use for several years, but recently some of the cameras have been upgraded to the Avigilon System, which provide access to high-definition images from nearly all police department computers, including all of those in patrol cars.

According to Sgt. Russ Radke, head of the city’s Directed Enforcement Team and responsible for the downtown and transit center areas, the cameras are all put in places where the police would like to be but can’t.

“It’s been very helpful,” Radke said, adding that so far there have been “more advantages than we anticipated.”

The cameras allow the police to better use their resources, Radke said. For example, a police officer on patrol can pull up a camera image of park to view at any time to see if there is trouble. Or, if the officer gets a report of a large crowd at a public space, there is usually a video feed available to check to see if it is a problem.

Radke said while the new camera systems have the ability to zoom in very close to allow police to identify individuals, the city cameras are not tied into any sort of facial-recognition database.

“It’s not quite as good as you’ll see in Vegas,” he said with a laugh.

The cameras proved their worth for the city last week, when a fight turned into a shooting at Liberty Park on Thursday evening. The city has several cameras around the park.

“It all occurred under the eyes of a camera,” Radke said.

An officer currently assigned to light duty pulled up the camera feed on her computer and helped direct other officers arriving on the scene.

“She provided some really useful information,” Radke said.

Police were able to rewind the video footage from the incident at the park to identify suspects, as well as the vehicles they had arrived in and the people they had arrived with. Police were also able to locate a suspect running from the park due to a description provided by the officer watching the feed as well as tying a vehicle left behind at the park to a suspect who was seen getting out of it prior to the event.

“It’s awesome,” Radke said of the ability to rewind an incident and watch how it began. “It’s an amazing tool.”

But Radke said the city also takes the responsibility of having the cameras placed throughout town very seriously, making sure they point only at public areas and not into surrounding homes and businesses.

“They’re positioned carefully,” he said, adding that the public works department has been integral in helping place and aim the cameras. “They put a lot of effort and thought into it.

“I wouldn’t want a camera pointed at my house either,” he said.

Radke said the top priority for the department as the system expands is making sure they are pointed at public areas only, a focus that comes straight from the top.

“We want to make sure it’s recording just public areas,” said Mayor Denis Law, adding that the privacy of citizens in their homes is his top concern regarding the use of video equipment.

“I don’t want cameras pointed in people’s lanai,” Law said.

Law said the cameras obviously don’t solve all of the publicsafety problems but said it was “no question” they are no additional tool in the “battle against the bad guys.”

Radke said the city’s camera program is designed to continue to expand and in the future, he expects police officers on bicycles to be able to access the video feeds from mobile devices.

“We’re trying to ID people who are committing criminal acts on public property,” Law said. “I think it provides another bit of protection as a deterrent and a valuable tool for detectives.”