The Lenexa Kansas Police Department is the first law-enforcement agency in the Kansas City area to launch a program for registering privately held security cameras to help detect and apprehend criminals. Police regularly ask public organizations, businesses, and individuals to share video camera footage that could aid crime-solving efforts. The news media often broadcast images of criminal suspects recorded by private cameras, which can lead to identifying the individuals.

Lenexa’s new Community Video Partnership program will work on a voluntary basis with property owners who have private video security systems that record public areas —streets, sidewalks, parking lots, and the like. Police who respond to burglaries, assaults, and other crimes will be able to see a map of nearby locations with cameras so they can quickly contact registered video partners that may have captured footage related to the incident.

“The Lenexa Police Department is proud of our great working relationship with the community,” said Police Chief Thomas Hongslo. “Lenexa is a very safe community due to this strong partnership. We work together to solve problems and initiate new ideas that benefit the police department and the community. The advancement in video technology helps us deter a crime from occurring and greatly increases solvability after a crime had been committed. A video partnership project with the community is the next step in ensuring that we combat crime using the tools that we have available to us.”

Information provided voluntarily by partners will be housed in a secure database. Property owners who register a security camera would only be contacted by the Lenexa Police Department if a criminal incident takes place in the vicinity of that camera.

Police personnel may ask camera owners to review or provide recorded footage related to the date and time of an incident. The police could use the information gathered to spprehend and prosecute the criminals involved.