Monday, March 05, 2007

Surveillance cameras saw trouble, police stopped it

Redlands Daily Facts - Surveillance cameras saw trouble, police stopped it: "Downtown video surveillance cameras and alert dispatchers likely headed off a potential assault over the weekend.

According to police spokesman Carl Baker, police dispatchers were monitoring the video from surveillance cameras in several locations along Orange Street Saturday night when they saw a man in the crosswalk at State Street challenging people walking to their cars.

While continuing to keep an eye on the subject through the video screens mounted in the Police Department's Dispatch Center at the corner of Eureka and Brookside, dispatchers alerted officers who arrived and arrested the man for being drunk in public.

The downtown surveillance cameras, approved by the City Council in November 2006, are part of the Redlands Police Department's strategy to leverage existing technology as 'force multipliers,' Baker said.

Officials said, one of the advantages of the system is the ability it gives police to intervene during a crime in progress or even before a crime occurs."

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