Cleveland police have increasingly relied on surveillance tools such as cameras, license plate readers and gunshot detection technology.
The Cleveland Division of Police has expanded its in-car camera system from about 20 police cars in 2010 to more than 250 cars with dash cameras today. Around the same time, the city has gone from having about 70 cameras to now more than 2,700 street cameras, giving the police department views of business corridors and major intersections.
The city used about $2.75 million of American Rescue Plan Act money to expand ShotSpotter – a gunshot-detection system from SoundThinking – in 2022. Cleveland started using ShotSpotter in the Fourth Police District in November 2020.
City and police leaders shared what surveillance technology they use and how it’s used during a Community Police Commission forum at New Sardis Primitive Baptist Church on Thursday.
Body-worn cameras
In 2015, Cleveland was one of the first major cities to start using body cameras, said Larry Jones, the deputy commissioner who oversees Public Safety IT staff.
Every member of the police department, from the chief to patrol officers, wears one today. The department has gone through three versions of body-worn cameras, upgrading as technology advances, Jones said. They plan to upgrade again by early next year.
Officers are expected to turn on their cameras when they go out on a call or when they sense an interaction might escalate. To manually activate their camera, officers tap twice on a button in the middle of it.
The body camera also automatically turns on with certain triggers through a Bluetooth connection if an officer is in their car.
In 2023, 594,000 videos were uploaded to the system, totaling about 128,000 hours of video, Jones said.
The videos are categorized by type of incident. For example: traffic citation, citizen engagement, homicide. How long the footage is kept depends on the department’s policies for each category.
Videos have an embedded encryption key that has to match the video uploaded to the cloud storage system to ensure the video hasn’t been altered.
In-car dash cameras
An in-car dash camera starts recording when the car’s sirens activate, the car travels more than 80 miles per hour or if the shotgun in the police car is released. Because the dash camera and body-worn camera are connected through Bluetooth, those same triggers activate the body camera as long as the officer wearing it is in or close enough to their car.
The department has 250 dash cameras in police cars, and about 80% of police are trained on the dash camera system, Jones said. Just like with body cameras, the footage is stored and categorized, and the length of time it’s kept depends on the policy for each category.
ShotSpotter
ShotSpotter is a gunshot-detection technology that uses acoustic sensors and computer software to detect gunshots and alert police about incidents.
GPS-enabled sensors detect the location of gunfire. The sound is reviewed by a Sound Thinking analyst who confirms whether it was an actual gunshot. Once confirmed, an alert is sent to the dispatch center, in-car computers, smartphone apps, and the Real Time Crime Center, where Cleveland police can analyze all data coming in from public and private cameras, ShotSpotter and other technology to give officers more information.
Cleveland police do not get access to the live audio feeds. They receive a brief recording (less than a minute) of the gunshots from the alert.
The analysts eliminate a lot of fireworks from the system, said Commander Reinhold Kauntz. In the three-square-mile area of Mt. Pleasant, where the city piloted ShotSpotter, there has been 90% accuracy in determining that an alert was a gunshot, Kauntz said.
Kauntz also emphasized the importance of the Real Time Crime Center. As officers are dispatched to where ShotSpotter detected a gunshot, people at the center can look for street cameras in the area. Camera footage might provide more information on what happened, whether someone was injured or who the suspect might be.
The officers sent to the scene need to investigate using the information they have, just as if a neighbor were to report hearing a gunshot, Kauntz said. It goes beyond an officer saying, “I can now pat down anybody I see on the street,” he said.
Street cameras
Cleveland put up its first video surveillance cameras – about 70 – throughout the city between 2009 and 2012. Those cameras were placed mostly around Public Square and on buildings that Homeland Security, which funded the program, considered “critical infrastructure.” This included the stadiums, Jones said.
Now, the city has more than 2,700 cameras covering business corridors, recreation centers and parks. Some cameras can be moved to certain locations and are used to cover big community events or to hotspots as police see crime increase in certain areas, Jones said.
“One of the things I want to be very clear about is our cameras do not do any type of facial recognition,” Jones said. “We do not have a facial recognition database. It’s not something we’re looking at. It’s not a technology we’re moving in the direction of.”
The state has strict laws and regulations around facial recognition, he said. The city’s cameras are placed 12 to 15 feet high to focus on public right of way, too high up to capture specific faces, Jones said.
Businesses can also opt into giving the police department access to their cameras. Residents can also register their private cameras with the police department so officers can contact them if something happens on their street, Sgt. Jose Garcia said.
License plate readers
In 2011, the state funded the installation of 39 license plate readers in Northeast Ohio, Jones said.
In 2022, the city received grant funding to buy its own license plate reader program. Cleveland now has about 100 license plate readers mounted on utility poles and focusing on business corridors, high traffic and high accident areas, Jones said.
Data from the readers is stored for 30 days unless it is relevant to an active case.
