Video network a new light on crime

With links to several Tampa offices, the system uses infrared and night vision on helicopters to track criminal activity.

By AMY HERDY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 6, 2002

TAMPA -- The Tampa police officer turned on his cruiser's flashing lights. The stolen Dodge Neon in front of him speeded up. The chase was on.

As the cars careened down city streets, someone across town was watching.

At the Tampa Police Department, a supervisor monitored the chase on a video screen, watching images transmitted from a gyro-cam mounted on a police helicopter.

With the helicopter keeping the suspect in sight from above, the supervisor called off the chase. The suspect, thinking he had gotten away, slowly drove home, where he was arrested.

"That's typical," said Tampa police Lt. Paul Driscoll, recounting the chase from last year as an example of one of the many uses of the department's video network system, demonstrated for reporters Tuesday in the office of Mayor Dick Greco.

"There may come a time, hopefully not, some catastrophe would happen and we could view it in here without going to the scene," the mayor said. The video network has links to his office, police district offices, police Chief Bennie Holder's office at headquarters downtown, Hillsborough County's Emergency Operations Center and City Council chambers.

The $3-million system, paid for with a federal grant, is the first of its kind in the country because it includes not just infrared camera capabilities, but camera night vision as well, Driscoll said.

The Pinellas Sheriff's Office has infrared cameras mounted on helicopters, but not night vision.

Infrared video can only detect heat images. But someone viewing night vision video can clearly identify a person's features.

The project has been about three years in the making and was completed in phases, Driscoll said.

It works like this: Gyro-stabilized digital video cameras are mounted on three Tampa police helicopters and on a police boat. The cameras capture video and downlink it to a receiver. The receiver distributes the video across a data network, in this case the Police Department and other city offices, Driscoll said.

"We have real-time information," he said. "And we can see things the street officers can't see."

The department has been using the system as it has developed for two years, Driscoll said. The final step was the addition of the video screens at the mayor's office and in City Council chambers.

Greco called the system "tremendous" and praised the clarity of the screen images.

"It gives you a whole different perspective of land," he said.

In addition to tracking stolen cars and other crimes, the cameras have been used to monitor public events, including Gasparilla and Guavaween.

Greco said they also can be used to give prospective developers a sense of Tampa's landscape.

-- Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.

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