Crystal Thomas
The State Journal-Register
Springfield will soon join several Illinois cities that have a voluntary program in which residents can register their private cameras to help out police. Police Chief Kenny Winslow told the City Council this past week that the registration will be available through the Springfield Police Department’s website in February.
Residents who own private exterior cameras would enter information, like their address and a way to contact them, into a portal on the website. That information would be uploaded into a spreadsheet, which would plot all of the registered private security cameras on a map. Police officers would have access to this information and would be able to contact camera owners afterward if a crime occurred nearby.
Winslow said the camera owners would be able to send in the footage through evidence.com, which is an encrypted hosting site that the city already uses. Or, a police officer could review the footage with the homeowner.
Winslow said police are more likely to apprehend a suspect if they get information quickly after a crime. Plus, Winslow said the camera network could act as a deterrent to crime happening in the first place.
Several Illinois cities like Chicago, Belleville, O’Fallon, Bloomington and Edwardsville have registrations. Bloomington has had the program since 2016. It takes two to five minutes to fill out the form on its website, according to its police department’s spokesman, Officer John Fermon.
In more serious crimes, police will have already committed to a door-to-door neighborhood canvass, Fermon said. Participation from the public when they hear about homicides can already be high, he added.
The registration comes in handy in crimes like burglary and battery, where not as many resources may be available.
The registration was part of a presentation to city council this week about the police department’s proposed budget. Aldermen seemed receptive to the idea.
“This is something that’s being widely asked for by our neighborhood associations and will be a positive for the city,” said Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin.
In an interview, McMenamin said a few neighborhood associations in his ward have already created lists of home security cameras and shared them with their neighborhood police officer. A citywide effort would be more helpful, McMenamin said.
He, too, has noticed more exterior cameras. He said he has encountered cameras that doubled as doorbells while dropping off meals on Meals on Wheels.
McMenamin cited a December shooting, in which a man got out of his car and opened fire on a car near Leland and Wiggins avenues, wounding a 26-year-old man. A camera capturing a license plate of the shooter’s car in that instance would have helped, McMenamin said.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 