MIAMISBURG, Ohio (WDTN) — There is growing popularity in doorbell security systems, and law enforcement officers are looking to use those devices as another tool to help solve crimes.
Cindi Threlkeld, the Downtown Citizens Patrol Initiative Officer for the Miamisburg Police Department, said members of the community can play a crucial role in helping solve investigations.
“We’ve had a lot of investigations recently where we’ve relied on public help for identification of suspects, suspect vehicles or gathering further evidence in serious investigations,” Threlkeld explained.
The Miamisburg Police Department was one of five departments in the state to be selected by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office for the TALEN Project. It is a pilot program using an online platform called Fusus. The Fusus Real-Time Crime Center in the Cloud streamlines video and data from multiple sources, like traffic cameras or security cameras, and sends it to law enforcement agencies in the field.
Miamisburg PD is asking people to register their doorbell security systems with Fusus to provide the department with information on where these devices are located around the community.
“Once the camera is registered, what happens is we could send an alert out to the system and say in this radius we had a hit-skip crash. Can you check your cameras?” Threlkeld said.
If anyone has footage that can be useful to an investigation, they will be able to directly send it to the police department via the Fusus platform. Threlkeld said this can cut down on the amount of time it takes to get crucial information.
“We don’t have to try and figure out how to download from their servers or how to download onto a flash drive and then get it to us. It’s just kind of a streamlined way to handle our investigations,” Threlkeld said.
Residents will only need to provide information like their name, basic contact information, and the location of their security system. Threlkeld also assured all of the information provided will only be seen by the police department and only if the resident gives permission.
“We won’t have access to those cameras until you provide any information for it. It basically puts a dot on a map so that we can say, okay, this accident occurred here. There’s a camera here. Let’s send out an alert to this area and request information in this set period of time, on this date,” Threlkeld said.
To register your security system, click here.
