St. Louis Public Radio
Members of the Public Safety Committee of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, along with supporters and opponents of an aerial surveillance program, participate in a video conference meeting of the committee on Tuesday.
A controversial aerial surveillance program has cleared its first hurdle at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen.
The board’s Public Safety Committee voted 6-1 Tuesday to endorse a three-year contract with Ohio-based Persistent Surveillance Systems.
“The stated goals, quite frankly, of the bill and of the agreement is justice for victims and their families,” said Alderman Tom Oldenburg, D-16th Ward, the sponsor of the legislation. “2020 was the most violent year we have seen in 50 years. We have to immediately have an active plan that will enhance our existing technology to bring more justice to those 262 families and all of those who have fallen victim to homicide and other violent crimes.”
Baltimore Police threatened to end spy plane program in November, claiming disturbing leaks of information
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dayton, 2012. they get word of a burglary, track the suspect in the white truck as he s getting away and direct police right to him. dayton s police chief says the technologies helped his depleted force. allows us to gain data on criminal offenses for which there are often not witnesses and clearly police officers are not there to prevent. reporter: but privacy advocates say this smacks of big brother. they might have actually crossed a line. this creates the opportunity after the fact to look at anybody for any reason. we re responding in support of law enforcement to reported crimes only. reporter: and mcnutt says they closely monitor their own analysts to make sewure they re only tracking suspects. despite the controversy, ross mcnutt says police departments in ten different cities around the world are interested in buying his system to use on a permanent basis. brianna? wow were saying before that just from that one, the images you were seeing of the one gangland murder
bottom. in an instant, the suspect approaches, fires. the victim s down. the killer sprints off. this 2009 gangland shooting in juarez, mexico, was captured from 10,000 feet about 2 miles up. you can see a whole group of people here reacting to the shot. they come over and look at the victim then they run down the alleyway actually after the shooter. reporter: from their specially equipped cessnas, ross and his firm persistent surveillance systems can monitor large sections of cities. because they re in the air for hours at a time, they can track back to the moment of a crime and before it. in juarez they meet up three to four times prior to the murder including one time right outside the murder scene. reporter: in the moments afterward we can follow all of the cars. we re going to jump over and follow the car that the shooter got into and see where he goes to. reporter: they tie in a google view image to show the house where the suspect went to