In early March, the Columbia Heights Police Department (CHPD) launched a program for residents to share camera footage with the CHPD. A press release from the city described the Residential & Business Camera Registry as way to create “a database of private camera locations in the City.”
“Security camera footage is a vital tool for investigators, but the CHPD doesn’t always know where privately-owned cameras are located,” the press release said. “This new program makes it easier for investigators to partner with community members and expedite the evidence-gathering process.”
Any resident or business owner in Columbia Heights in possession of a security camera can apply to be part of the Registry. The application form for the registry says the “Columbia Heights Police Department will never have access to your camera equipment, security footage, or cloud-stored data,” that participants “have the right to choose whether or not (they) provide any footage” and that participants may withdraw participation “at any time.”
In a March 24 call with the Northeaster, CHPD Captain Jackie Urbaniak emphasized that the program is strictly voluntary while saying it would help CHPD officers. “It gives us an understanding of where the cameras are in the city. It makes it a little easier for officers, when they’re canvassing for crime, to know, ‘This person has a camera.’”
Urbaniak continued, “It does not provide access to their cameras. We cannot watch their cameras live. We cannot access anything of it. We would just use their contact information to reach out and get the camera footage quickly.”
The CHPD has informed residents of this program via social-media posts. Urbaniak said they brought it up in a community newsletter and that CHPD is “working on getting a flyer together” to give out at community events.
Will Rottler, communications and engagement coordinator for the city, said the flyers will have both English and Spanish on them. The city is working “to increase its relationship with the Spanish-language community,” he said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of concerns right now about immigration. Maybe Spanish-speaking families might not want to share videos from their door or cameras, so we’re going to do some outreach talking about how this program would benefit the community.”
CHPD “looked at what other agencies were doing” for this program, Urbaniak said. “Coon Rapids and Blaine have similar programs. We wanted to put something together to help with our crime, and being able to get camera footage quickly, and working with the community to try and make it safer.”
In the program, in the event of a crime, officers working with the CHPD would attempt to reach out to relevant camera owners as quickly as possible. “We might not be able to get ahold of them that night, but we’d at least be able to call them, leave a voice mail or send them a text or email, just to try to get the camera footage as soon as we can so we can start trying to piece together what happened.”
Urbaniak framed this program as an attempt to “be proactive in our response to crime rather than reactive.”
“We’re trying to do more community reach, and we’re trying to solve some of these crimes earlier, rather than having them linger.”
When asked about concerns residents might have about immigration enforcement, Urbaniak said the CHPD does not share their information with immigration-enforcement officials. “This is just for our agency, so we can know how to reach out to look into the crimes we are trying to investigate.”
Any footage that doesn’t “have evidentiary value” is discarded after review. The CHPD saves footage relevant to ongoing investigations.
As for how the CHPD determines which residents to reach out to, Urbaniak said the CHPD looks “for anyone that might have immediate video. There could be a car that drove by… But it’s not going to entail everyone in the city unless our investigation leads us that way.”
All told, Urbaniak framed the program as a way for the CHPD to keep up with advancing technologies. “In the past, we would have to walk to houses or drive around the area to look for it rather than having data available to us. It’s going to allow for faster collection of evidence and reduce canvassing time for officers.”