NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Often, you hear us say the police need your help with a criminal investigation.
You are the eyes and ears of the community, so it makes sense.
According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, while a crime is in progress, you can help, too.
On Tuesday, I visited the impressive Community Safety Center at Metro Police headquarters. It opened in April and is staffed roughly 20 hours every day of the week.
In their real-time crime center, when a crime is occurring, Metro Police can pull up a nearby public safety camera and tell officers in that area what they're seeing. There are 140 public safety cameras in Davidson County.
"When you have a camera and can get an accurate description, you can also send that picture or video to the officer so they can see it for themselves. This is who I need to stop, so they stop that one person instead of interacting with 15–20 people. They’re only interacting with one person," Deputy Chief Greg Blair said.
When Deputy Chief Greg Blair started at the Metro Nashville Police Department he would've given anything for these tools.
"We don't want to build a case on testimonial evidence. We want to build it on hard facts and what's better than a picture or a video," Blair said.
Using a platform called FUSUS, Metro Police can access public and private cameras using the same system. Police can only see cameras on private property where the owner volunteered to participate.
"They set the parameters on it, they set the retention, how long we can hold video or pull video. They can leave the relationship at any point in time... We need to help each other be safe. There's strength in numbers," he said.
There are more than 1,100 private cameras registered already, according to Connect Nashville.
Police are not using FUSUS at the moment. To continue using FUSUS, Metro Police needs Metro Council to approve a new contract.
At this stage, police are asking businesses and commercial properties to share their feeds or at least register their cameras. By registering, police know you are OK with being contacted if video from the area is needed.
"I think everyone thinks we're watching everything everyone does. There's no way. You've seen this room here. There's no way we're watching what everyone is doing. We're focused in on people who are victimized," he said.
Next Tuesday, October 15th, Metro Police will ask Metro Council to re-commit to this program.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
