THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410070323
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PAM STARR AND KIRSTEN SORTON, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 170 lines
IT'S ABOUT 2:15 P.M. and a tall, husky man with a bushy moustache is standing outside the Gold and Fashion Cove store at 1704 Atlantic Ave., chatting with friends.
Over on the Boardwalk, a fiftyish couple clad in jeans and windbreakers is walking briskly past the 24th Street Park, engaged in animated conversation.
Meanwhile, a silver Corvette can be spotted between a Jeep and a sedan in the Pavilion Convention Center parking lot, its license plate clearly visible.
Though blocks apart, all three scenes are playing out simultaneously under the watchful eyes of officer Mike Falkner as he sits before a closed circuit television in the video observation unit of the Second Precinct on 18th Street.
None of his subjects has any clue that they're on camera.
Virginia Beach police have been continuously monitoring Oceanfront activities from 10 locations over the past two years. The cameras act as ``additional eyes,'' for the police, said spokesman Lou Thurston. But to many people it's creepy, knowing that Big Brother is keeping his eyes on citizens as they go about their daily business.
And public surveillance is by no means limited to the police. You can be photographed while pumping gas, driving, shopping, checking into hotels, staying in a hospital, riding a school bus, banking, grocery shopping, eating at fast-food restaurants and while working at any kind of business.
About the only place in public where it's illegal to videotape is in a restroom or dressing room. Surveillance cameras have surpassed their original use as a simple shoplifting deterrent. Now, it seems, you can't go anywhere without being watched by an electronic eye.
Large retail stores have operated closed circuit television cameras for many years. The cameras in Sears at Pembroke Mall, for example, are used to survey the entire selling floor, to deter and monitor theft.
``We hope that the cameras will serve as a deterrent along with a means of apprehension,'' said Buck Weedon, store general manager. ``It is a big help.''
At the very least, the cameras make would-be thieves think twice before lifting merchandise.
Dan Adams, owner of Adams-Scat Security Systems in Kempsville, said it's more unusual for businesses not to have some type of security camera.
``More people are doing cameras these days than at any other time,'' said Adams, who has been selling security systems for more than 20 years. ``When you go into a store and see a black dome, that's a camera. You can put cameras in smoke detectors, hook them up to alarm systems.
``I think it's best to put a monitor in front of the store to see people come in.''
Employee theft, shoplifting and employee safety are the biggest motives for companies to install cameras, he said. A few places may use ``dummy'' cameras, or cameras that don't record, to save money, but Adams doesn't recommend them.
``A recording is admissible evidence in court,'' he said. ``A camera is the best deterrent in the world - it keeps honest people honest and the criminals honest.''
Not to mention schoolchildren. Driving a bus full of unruly kids is a hair-raising job, one that requires steely concentration and rigid discipline. But children don't always listen to authority and frequently misbehave. So last year Virginia Beach Public Schools installed 100 black boxes inside school buses, at the top of the aisle.
Only 10 of those boxes actually house video cameras, and those cameras are rotated throughout the fleet, said Dennis Slavinsky, assistant supervisor of school transportation. He said that since the installation, behavioral problems have decreased.
One mother, he said, kept insisting to school officials her son could not have misbehaved on the bus the way the driver said. But when faced with the irrefutable evidence of a videotape, Slavinsky recalled, the woman left the office ``with her tail between her legs.''
The biggest proponents of the cameras, of course, are the bus drivers.
``We did a survey and 70 percent of bus drivers thought the cameras were wonderful, while 30 percent thought they were a waste of time,'' Slavinsky said. ``I think it's a good idea. It's a safety factor - drivers can spend more time driving.''
Others' daily commutes are about to go prime time, too.
You may have noticed those long, steel poles lying on the side of the toll road, the ones whose tops are surrounded by mesh wiring and resemble crow's nests. Well, they really conceal surveillance cameras.
Thirty-nine of the cameras, which are part of a larger traffic management system, will be erected along Interstate 64 and the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway up to the toll plaza within a few weeks.
The cameras can cover a quarter mile in both directions by rotating 180 degrees, and can tilt, pan and zoom in to find an object.
Virginia Department of Transportation officials plan to use the cameras to help locate traffic problems. They already use closed circuit television cameras at the bridge tunnels to monitor traffic and help with break downs.
``They enable us to provide better responses to incidents,'' said Stephany Handshaw, freeway traffic operation engineer. ``With the closed-circuit television cameras, we can detect incidents much more rapidly and verify them.''
That works in the business community, too. A security camera plainly detects shoplifters - those who come into the business and those who work there.
Leonard Dobrin, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, said that there are other reasons for businesses to use cameras.
Policing, an attempt to deter certain types of behavior, protection from civil suits and protection from other employees are among those he cited.
Dobrin said the cameras can make it cheaper and easier for people to monitor a certain area, especially for security and police officers.
``It is a lot easier to have one officer watching a bank of monitors then to have one out on every corner,'' he said.
Businesses also establish the cameras to protect themselves from civil suits, he added. The cameras provide security for their patrons as well as record what takes place in their businesses.
Dobrin said he doesn't know to what degree the cameras work, but for them to be productive the monitor must be watched.
``If no one is watching the monitor, the device is useless,'' said Dobrin. ``In general, the majority of CCT (closed-circuit television) monitors that stay on most of the time are not being watched.''
That's not the case at the Second Precinct. Those 13 monitors in the small video observation room are viewed 24 hours by police officers on light duty and by civilian volunteers.
The cameras sit inside black domes that hang from light posts. They're positioned on Atlantic Avenue at 17th, 19th, 21st, 23rd, 25th and 27th streets; on the Boardwalk at 17th and 24th streets; on Pacific at 22nd Street; and on top of the Pavilion Center office building at the toll road's terminus.
While many people might think the $190,000 system - which was partly paid for by resort area merchants - was installed because of the Laborfest riots of 1989, police spokesman Thurston said it wasn't the only reason.
``That's an important area because of the influx of tourist season,'' he said. ``It's a way for the shift supervisor to see what things are like. The cameras are more of a tool than a deterrent.''
The system is high-tech but simple to operate. A joy stick on the keyboard moves the camera up, down, left, right. A zoom lens can pick up a cargo ship 10 miles in the distance and, on a clear day, the Eastern Shore.
Police can even make pictures from the video camera on a color printer.
``If we hear a call going out, we can zoom in and record it,'' explained Falkner, enlarging the image of a man outside a store. ``It helps with citizen complaints. We can play it back to internal affairs to show if there was any brutality used.''
It's fascinating to watch the activities of so many different locations, and it's almost impossible to look away. Yet one gets the queasy feeling of invading someone's privacy. Not so, said Falkner.
``Most people don't pay any attention to the bubbles,'' he said. ``But just the knowledge that they're there might prevent them from doing something.
``The way society has become, you have to do something to protect the citizens.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by CHARLIE MEADS
Virginia Beach police officer Mike Falkner keeps an eye on
Oceanfront monitors in the video observation unit of the Second
Precinct on 18th Street.
Oceanfront businesses also keep an eye out on the public. This
camera, high on the side of a motel, pans the pool area as part of
an overall security system.
Dan Adams, owner of Adams-Scat Security Systems in Kempsville, shows
off the latest in miniature security video cameras.
Beach police have been continuously monitoring Oceanfront activities
from 10 locations over the past two years. The cameras are
positioned at Atlantic Avenue at 17th, 19th, 21st, 23rd, 25th and
27th streets; on the Boardwalk at 17th and 24th streets; on Pacific
at 22nd Street; and on top of the Pavilion Center office building at
the toll road's terminus.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT SURVEILLANCE CLOSED
CIRCUIT TELEVISION PUBLIC SAFETY by CNB