HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Cameras can be found anywhere nowadays but unfortunately police are not. "If you're outside and you don't think you're underneath someone's camera, your mistaken," North Alabama Multi-Agency Crime Center Director Curt Worshek shares. "So, imagine a few years ago there was a crime that happened in your neighborhood and so one of our officers or two or five or ten have to canvass the neighborhood for hours and figure out whether or not you have a camera."
Huntsville police’s camera share program is a tool being used to get better eyes on the ground. "The Huntsville Police Department's camera share program is designed to allow citizens, businesses and government agencies to register their public facing or outward cameras without a police department. essentially, that gives our officers on the street a map of any registered cameras in the area," Drew Gilbert, Guardian Network Operator with HPD shares. "Essentially, that gives our officers on the street a map of any registered cameras in the area. So, there's any public safety concerns instead of them wasting essential time trying to locate those cameras. "
The program help catch even the pettiest of crimes. " You have a package stolen off your porch and you don't have a camera, but your neighbor across the street does or somebody in your neighborhood has that camera, we're able to see where that footage is and request that from you," Gilbert shares. "Then we're able to usually find a suspect's description, a physical description or vehicle description. and that plays a pretty big role in helping us get information that we didn't have before."
Technology has become key in solving most crimes. "As technology evolves, it definitely helps us figure out cases and get information that we may not have had before," Gilbert explains. "Public facing cameras are one of the biggest resources we have. That's probably the biggest, most important piece of all of this is if somebody has a camera and we don't know about it, there may be some small clip on there that actually helps us figure something out."
Those who register for the program won't have to worry about privacy. "So, privacy is the utmost concern to us. So, when you register for the camera sure. program that is a secure list that nobody outside of HPD has," Gilbert shares. "So that's only things that our patrol officers, our investigators can see and then any footage that's obtained that is only passed out to people that are working that case."
