Sheriff’s Office asks residents and businesses with outdoor surveillance cameras to register in a database for police to check the nearest video system after a major crime;

St. Bernard Parish Sheriff James Pohlmann is asking residents and business owners to actively participate in “our fight against crime’’ by making it easier for police to quickly see surveillance system video after a major incident to more quickly identify suspects.

The sheriff said, “We want to create a secured database that contains residential and commercial addresses and contact information that would allow officers investigating a crime – such as an act of violence, burglary, vehicle theft or other major occurrence – the ability to immediately locate the nearest surveillance systems in the area.”

“By allowing us to know video surveillance system locations, residents and business owners would provide the Sheriff’s Office with yet another tool to help keep St. Bernard Parish a safe place to live and work.’’

The Sheriff’s Office isn’t asking for access to anyone’s home or business, just to see whatever video your system may have captured if there has been a crime in the immediate area of a residential or business location, the sheriff said. A copy of video from a certain time period would be good enough.

“It would be done with as little intrusion to the resident or business owners as possible,” said Sheriff Pohlmann.

Sheriff Pohlmann also assures that no one other than law enforcement personnel would have access to the registry, which would be kept in the sheriff’s 911 center’s computer-aided dispatching system which is not accessible to the public and is in a secured location.

To register, call Capt. Charles Borchers at the Sheriff’s Office at (504) 278-7628. Leave a return number if you reach his voice mail. Borchers is Director of Community Relations and longtime Director of Crime Prevention and head of Neighborhood Watch and Business Watch for the Sheriff’s Office.

Callers will be asked for basic information: including whether the surveillance system you have is able to record at night and over what period it records before starting to over-write previous recordings. If you are unsure, please provide as much information as possible.

Advances in technology have allowed people the ability to protect their properties by installing low-cost surveillance systems that capture clear video recordings during both day and night, Sheriff Pohlmann said.

Sheriff Pohlmann said, “We have always enjoyed good relations with our residents and business owners and they have helped solve crimes when they have provided access to their surveillance systems after an incident in their area and we sought their help.’’

“Often, they recorded video of a crime but were unaware it was captured on their surveillance systems,’’ he said.

Now, Sheriff Pohlmann said, “The department would like to take the next logical step in our effort to fight crime’’ by creating a database that could be used immediately to locate the nearest surveillance cameras.

“We all have seen the news where several different surveillance systems recordings have been spliced together to form a complete time line of a crime, often leading to an immediate identification of a perpetrator,” Sheriff Pohlmann said.

“We would like to have the ability for our officers to access the database, contact the owners of the nearest systems to where the crime occurred, and ask permission to view – at the owners’ convenience – the surveillance system video to identify any persons or vehicles involved.

He said time saved by having this valuable information immediately accessible to the Sheriff’s Office, rather than having to go door-to-door looking for a video surveillance system, would aid in making a speedy arrest or even possibly saving a life by getting the perpetrators off the street.

“Anyone who registers their video surveillance system in our registry would be making a direct contribution to help keep their area safe by having video that possibly could aid us in identifying a perpetrator of a crime in the fastest time frame possible.”