WASHINGTON - February 3, 2011 - The District’s top security chiefs are planning to expand their use of electronic surveillance by issuing tickets for more traffic offenses, integrating thousands of private and public cameras into a single feed and adding portable cameras that can be positioned to peek into any neighborhood.
The D.C. plans align with the regional government proposal to better integrate surveillance and other operations in the nation’s capital with that of suburban Maryland and Virginia.
The District has long deployed traffic cameras to catch speeders and red-light runners, has set up neighborhood surveillance cameras, and uses sound detectors with Shot-Spotter technology to home in on gunfire.
But the new portable cameras - despite their planned use for traffic offenses such “blocking the box” and failing to come to a complete stop - are far more flexible and can be put in a wider variety of neighborhoods.
Some cities use them to capture a wide variety of minor and major offenses - public urination and graffiti scrawling, jaywalking and car accidents, purse snatchings and car thefts, and the behavior of political demonstrators.
“They will be implemented within the next year,” Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier told WTOP-AM on Thursday during her monthly “Ask the Chief” program. “It is coming.”
