WMPD rolling out ‘Neighbors’ watch program
City hopes the public will embrace new-age communication system
news@theeveningtimes.com
The West Memphis Police Department may soon have hundreds of new surveillance cameras in the city thanks to the Neighbors app by Ring. The city effectively utilizes 40 Sky Cop cameras along busy streets across the city to catch criminals. Now, the police department has tied into the new app to bridge a communication gap of reporting suspicious activity in the social media era.
The Neighbors app provides a place to post video of any suspicious activity or crime recorded from any home security camera.
This could give the WMPD hundreds of new video eyewitnesses.
Assistant Police Chief Robert Langston explained the reason for aligning with the digital neighborhood watch app.
“Ten years ago people would call dispatch and tell them everything going on in their neighborhood,” said Langston. “Now, with posting it on social media they feel like they are reporting it.”
West Memphis police learned about the capabilities of the app during a working visit with St.
Louis Police.
“We saw it there on June 1 and came home immediately and contacted Ring,” said Langston. “They put on a training session for us and gave us access to the Neighbors app. It’s a free app and you set up a ring around your house NEIGHBORS WATCH
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anywhere from a quarter mile up to seven miles for notifications.. You can post stuff from your camera (it does not have to be a Ring camera) for everyone in your area to see.”
It helps everyone know what’s going on, and now that includes the WMPD.
“Now we can see pretty much anything happening inside of West Memphis,” said Langston. “It’s all anonymous. When we get a video off a message in this app, we don’t get a name or an address. It just gives us a Ring customer number. When we do see a video that may have significance with a crime in the community we can send a message to that person without knowing who it is and ask for a copy of the video. If we have break-ins in a general area then we can send a group message to everyone on the app within a half mile circumference. We can say if you have any information or more footage please share it with us. Once the video is shared, we communicate by private message.”
The Ring Neighbors app may make the police department a little more nimble, but the chief said calling dispatch as soon as possible helps put the police immediately on the case.
“It’s a neighborhood watch put on video,” said Langston. “We don’t monitor it. It’s not a substitute for calling 911 or calling dispatch. If someone does something at 2 a.m. we may not see it for another seven hours.”
Langston provided a short cut for those that want neighborhood notices or desiring to share videos or interact. Text 555888 and leave the message westmemphisar,
