May 17, 2023 Cobb County police praised a new camera registry program with leading to the capture of a gunman who killed a woman and wounded four others in an Atlanta medical office.
By Hayden Sumlin Source Marietta Daily Journal, Ga. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
MARIETTA, GA — As part of the rollout of a new camera registry program Tuesday, the Cobb Police Department released new footage of police capturing the suspect accused of shooting five people in Midtown Atlanta.
Police cited the events of May 3 to illustrate the need for the program. They said the cooperation between residents and police, using public and private video footage, was key to apprehending the suspect.
At Tuesday’s press conference, police aired previously unreleased footage of the capture of the suspect, Deion Patterson, in Cumberland. According to Chief Stuart VanHoozer, the suspect was identified and tracked by Cobb law enforcement due to the integration and registration of cameras.
The new program, Connect Cobb, is intended to allow officers to access cameras at residences and businesses. The partnership is voluntary for those who own private video systems. To register your home camera, visit connectcobbcounty.org/camera-registration.
If a Cobb resident decides to register their private security cameras with the Cobb County Police Department, law enforcement will not have automatic access to their video footage, officials said. Instead, when you register your camera, investigators will know a camera is located on your property and will be able to request video evidence from you.
There is no additional cost involved with sharing your camera location, police said. Additionally, Cobb police will not share your information with anyone else, and will only contact you if a crime occurs in your neighborhood.
Residents and business owners can go further by opting to integrate their security cameras. For cameras that are integrated, police can directly access the live video feed, instead of requesting footage after the fact.
The department requests access to exterior, public facing cameras. The goal of sharing your camera feed with the police is to improve response time and keep the community safer, police said.
“Precision policing, which is what we are terming this, is extremely important for us,” VanHoozer said. “We want a very, very detailed description of who committed the crime, so that we can stop the right person, not the wrong person.”