A year into the launch of the Colorado Springs Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center, the public is seeing proof that investments by local law enforcement agencies in cutting-edge technology like Flock cameras and drones are paying off in the Pikes Peak Region’s crime fight. The new technologies are on the job and doing yeoman’s work for the Springs police as well as the El Paso County Sheriff Office. 

It’s a welcome contrast to the recent, orchestrated and misplaced outrage by activists up in Denver against their city’s use of the very same kinds of breakthrough innovations.

Sure, the likes of drones, when involved with policing and law enforcement, can raise questions. The same goes for cameras mounted in public, even if they only are scanning license plates in search of stolen cars. All of us want to ensure our civil liberties aren’t compromised, of course.

But Springs law-enforcement agencies, in their targeted application of these surveillance technologies, have taken care to walk the line of liberty and justice while serving public safety. And they are scoring successes.

Take a case from Sept. 20, when the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office received an alert from a FLOCK Safety camera system regarding a vehicle tied to a felony warrant. The vehicle, detected traveling near Highway 85 and Main Street in Fountain, was associated with an attempted-murder suspect.  

Thanks to the FLOCK alert, Fountain Police Department officers quickly located the suspect vehicle in a retail parking lot. Officers positively identified the vehicle and blocked it from leaving, maintaining public safety while taking the high-risk suspect into custody for Springs police to later book.

Colorado Springs and El Paso County citizens — fed-up with crime due to lax “justice-reform” polices at the state level — should ask themselves whether the same suspect would have been apprehended without the license-plate-reading technology? 

“The cameras provide real-time intelligence, enabling deputies and our law enforcement partners to respond rapidly, protect the public, and remove dangerous individuals from the streets,” El Paso County Sheriff Joe Roybal said in a news release.

Or how about the Springs police drones that tracked down three juveniles last week? The Real-Time Crime Center incorporates department technology, including drones, dating back several years but now has integrated access to feeds from more than 800 cameras across the city, including city-owned and business feeds, body-worn officer cameras and, of course, drones.

In last week’s incident, after the trio of kid car thieves drove off in the dead of night from the 700 block of South Academy Boulevard, officers opted to not pursue. Rather, they made the strategic decision to set up a perimeter and use a drone with the beat cops on duty and a K-9 unit. The juveniles were arrested on several charges, including an unrelated burglary to a car allegedly committed before the robbery.

Arrest made. Perpetrators, in this case juveniles, are unharmed and will have their day in court. And officers can go home to their families, safe and sound. 

That’s precise, professional policing. And it’s thanks to tied-together technologies allowing near-immediate access to information for cops out on the beat. It makes their jobs easier — and the public a lot safer.

The Gazette Editorial Board