Arlington asks residents, businesses to register security cameras

ARLINGTON, Texas - The city of Arlington is putting a plan in place it hopes will give officers a new crime-fighting tool.

When a suspect is on the run, Arlington police say knowing the location of security cameras, even in residential areas, can help investigators work faster.

"When officers have to canvas a neighborhood to obtain surveillance footage, that takes time. When we have to wait for the camera owners to call us back, that takes additional time," said Deputy Chief Steve Williams of Arlington PD's Technical Services. 

That's where "Connect Arlington" comes in, a voluntary database registry for residents with security camera systems.

"We’re not asking residence to integrate with us. We want them to just go in and register their cameras just so that we know they have cameras and footage that we could use," said Arlington Police Chief Al Jones. "If something happens in their neighborhood, we would send them an email that says hey, can you upload your videos if you saw something happen, or if you captured something in this timeframe?"

Police pointed to video from city cameras to illustrate the increased efficiency when used in conjunction with businesses.

To that end, a separate component of the project includes businesses who opt-in to register their cameras and pay a set-up and annual subscription fee to integrate their systems with the Arlington PD Crime Center.

The company Fusus will host that part of the initiative.

"There are various options that can be purchased, as an example, a convenience store may, if they want to share four cameras, a very low cost appliance of $200 within an annual subscription of $150. So $350 in year one and $150 each year recurring," said Anthony Baldoni with Fusus.

"When we have the ability to overlay public and private cameras, in one application, where we can direct our resources to real time, real time intelligence and feedback it’s an absolute game changer," said Deputy Chief Williams.

Other North Texas cities have similar programs in place, including Fort Worth.