Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 8, 1991 TAG: 9104080057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Medium
About 50 police departments, including several in Michigan, have bought the $7,300 video units, and mall security and armored car companies are interested, according to CrimTech Corp. of Auburn Hills, Mich.
"We're looking at every police car having it within four years," said company President John Squicciarini. "That's over a $2 billion market in the United States alone."
Among those looking at the system is the Los Angeles Police Department, which will test a unit for 90 days, Squicciarini said.
A department spokesman, Larry Fetters, said the equipment is likely to be popular with civil liberties groups.
"Clearly it would document the behavior of the officer," he said.
Paul Denenfeld, legal director of Michigan's American Civil Liberties Union chapter, welcomed the technology - as long as the cameras are "kept on at all times."
Filming citizens without their knowledge can make privacy rights an issue, but no one has yet raised it, Denenfeld said.
The system has a 2-inch-square camera mounted between a patrol car's mirror and windshield, linked to a recorder in the trunk. Like an airplane's flight recorder, it ties in to the officers' body microphones, the car's radar and other systems.
The video picture indicates the date, time, police department, car number, officers' numbers, speed of the patrol car, speed of other cars tracked by the radar unit, and whether lights or siren are in use.
"It allows the officer to stop, rewind and review," Squicciarini said. "He can show the violator what he was doing, that he was weaving in traffic or whatever."
by CNB