By Larry Copeland
USA TODAY
Those traffic cameras despised by so many drivers don’t just nail speeders and red-light runners. They’re helping police nab criminals.
Police in Red Bank, Tenn., caught four suspects in a violent home invasion by reviewing images from a red-light camera near the victims’ home. Four suspects tied up two victims and then ransacked the house, police say; one robber allegedly smashed his boot into a victim’s face.
“We went and pulled video from the traffic camera,” says Sgt. Dan Knight of the Red Bank Police criminal investigations division. “I was able to see the (suspects’ vehicle) go there prior to the home invasion and when they left.”
Other camera-as-crime-fighter examples:
After a 21-year-old college student in Tempe, Ariz., was dragged to her death when a drive-by purse snatcher caught the student’s hands in the purse strings, police traced the car through red-light camera footage.
In Washington state, a drunken driver who blamed the crash on the actions of the driver he had hit and killed was shown by a red-light camera to be lying.
In a second Arizona case, police used camera images to clear a woman who had been accused of striking a woman and her 4-year-old daughter in Scottsdale.
Traffic cameras are a popular law enforcement tool: 541 communities across the USA have red-light cameras, and more than 95 have speeding cameras, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which supports cameras.
The traffic cameras incite strong feelings on both sides. Houston and Los Angeles acted to remove their cameras in recent weeks, while Tampa added them.
As cameras have multiplied, so have crime-fighting opportunities, says David Kelly, head of the National Coalition for Safer Roads, a group funded by the photo enforcement industry. “The more cameras that are out there, the more opportunities there are to do things like get drunk drivers, get folks going through intersections where we know there’s been a home invasion, or help out with AMBER Alerts,” he says.
That doesn’t sway traffic-camera opponents such as the National Motorists Association. “The effect it has on personal rights to due process, I think that outweighs any potential benefits,” Executive Director Gary Biller says.
Copyright 2011 Gannett Company, Inc.