[StBernard] St. Bernard Sheriff's Office to create surveillance camera database with businesses and residents

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Sheriff's Office to create surveillance camera database with
businesses and residents
Print Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Benjamin
Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
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on March 21, 2014 at 4:30 PM, updated March 21, 2014 at 4:37 PM

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff James Pohlmann is asking business owners and
residents to register their outdoor surveillance cameras with the goal of
creating a database that the Sheriff's Office could use in the event of
major crimes.

"We want to create a secured database that contains residential and
commercial addresses and contact information that would allow officers
investigating a crime - such as an act of violence, burglary, vehicle theft
or other major occurrence - the ability to immediately locate the nearest
surveillance systems in the area," Pohlmann said. "...We would like to have
the ability for our officers to access the database, contact the owners of
the nearest systems to where the crime occurred, and ask permission to view
- at the owners' convenience - the surveillance system video to identify any
persons or vehicles involved."

Pohlmann said advances in technology have allowed people the ability to
protect their properties by installing low-cost surveillance systems that
capture clear video recordings during both day and night and that the
database is the "the next logical step in our effort to fight crime."

He said the database would help officers make a speedy arrest by saving the
time of having to go door to door looking for potential video surveillance
systems in the area.

He said the Sheriff's Office isn't asking for access to homes or businesses.
He said instead that his office just is asking to see whatever video the
cameras might have captured if there has been a crime in the immediate area.

"It would be done with as little intrusion to the resident or business
owners as possible," Pohlmann said.

Pohlmann also said no one other than law enforcement personnel would have
access to the registry of area surveillance cameras, which would be kept in
the 911 center's computer-aided dispatching system that is inaccessible to
the public.

To register in the database, the Sheriff's Office asks that people call
Capt. Charles Borchers at 504.278.7628. Borchers is the Sheriff's Office's
director of community relations, director of crime prevention, and the head
of the office's neighborhood watch and business watch programs.

Callers will be asked for basic information, including whether the
surveillance system is able to record at night and over what time periods it
records before starting to over-write previous recordings.