PALM COAST, Fla. – The Flagler County Sheriff's Office will soon be able to tap into city-owned traffic cameras installed around town to proactively fight crime.
"If there is a crime that is committed near an intersection where they may have cameras, our folks can then immediately start looking for vehicles in those areas and try to nail it down," Sheriff's Office Chief Mark Strobridge said.
Sheriff's Office officials said the cameras will also help solve crimes that have already occurred, since the cameras will be able to record data and store it in a proposed real-time crime center for three months.
"We'll go back and be able to look at that videotape from those particular intersections. But again, it's about fighting crime," Strobridge said.
Strobridge said this tool is not for traffic enforcement or catching speeders.
The 31 current cameras, and an additional 14 on the way, will complement the new automated license plate readers the county recently installed. Investigators said the license plate readers have already proved successful.
"We found a notorious violent criminal last Saturday evening in our community and we were able to prevent him from committing any crimes here," Strobridge said.
These tools are part of Sheriff Rick Staly's bigger vision of having a real time crime center, according to Strobridge.
"We want to build a network around this community to make it the safest community in Florida, and we're going to do that by leveraging technology," Strobridge said.
Sheriff's Office officials said they hope the system will be online within the next few months. It's still unclear how much the initiative will cost. Officials with the city of Palm Coast said as of right now, the cameras that are already installed are there to monitor the flow of traffic.