Say Cheese!

Next time Officer Carlos Colon pulls you over for running a stop sign or talking on your cellphone, be especially polite: You may be on video.

For the last month Colon (pictured) by day and Officer Craig Miller by night have been piloting an in-car camera recording system called the Arbitrator 360 in one patrol car cruising Fair Haven. During that time they made about 70 stops and the system worked well, recording all the action in word and deed occurring within a 180 degree arc around the cruiser at each stop.

New Haven’s police department is getting ready to install the cameras in 13 of its vehicles this month.

Colon and Lt. Robert Muller, the department’s technology coordinator, pronounced it a success.

The system features a touch screen. The in-camera recording is viewable in real time on a screen right on the main mobile data terminal (the MDT) in each of the vehicles.

“It’s great. When we record, it’s all there. If we do something wrong or they [citizens] do, it’s got to be there [on the digital record],” said Colon

Click on the play arrow to watch one of Colon’s video-ed stops at Grand and Ferry in Fair Haven.

“There’s always a suspicion of law enforcement. This [the in-car cameras] allows everyone to know,” said Muller. The system comes online as the department has also put into place a new policy reminding officers not to interfere with (or arrest) citizens for video-recording them in action in public.

The Arbitrator 360 hard drive goes on as soon as the ignition does, but the recording of a scene is activated either by the officer’s turning on the emergency lights, by a touch on the screen, or by turning on his microphone.
 

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