In light of the Daily O's top story today, I thought these should be shared. Olympia's finest hard at work!

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Intercity Transit has nearly finished installing camera systems on all of its regular coaches – almost 70 in all. Most of these installations involve seven cameras, while some shorter coaches have only five. All of them record video and audio information in a digital form for storage on a removable hard drive on the bus. The system records video on the bus for approximately 7 to 10 working days.

According to news stories (and Verint’s own website) these camera systems also wirelessly transmit the imagery to anyone with the knowledge and tools to make a wireless connection to the bus’ WiFi system, located above the driver’s head:

“In the event of a security incident, Nextiva Transit will allow supervisor and police vehicles to view live video from within the bus, enabling more effective actionable intelligence and emergency response.” 1

“Verint Systems Inc., a leading provider of analytic software-based solutions for workforce-enterprise optimisation and security, announced an agreement with Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) to enable the use of Verint Nextiva™ Wireless devices on MOTOMESH broadband wireless networks. (…) By deploying Nextiva wireless video management solutions on a Motorola mesh network, private security, law enforcement and emergency response personnel have immediate, high speed access to security video and data delivering heightened situational awareness to enable a more effective response.” 2

With the ability of the system to monitored live by those with the access tools, these systems have likely become a prime target for detectives seeking to identify those responsible for the Evergreen Uprising (Feb 15, 2008). Recent late night extensions of the routes to Evergreen have resulted in more “face time” for those who travel via bus to TESC.

When I was logging camera installations in the post-uprising weeks I noticed only 3 of the 30 buses seen on the Evergreen routes were NOT ones with camera systems installed. Prior to the uprising, it was rare for the buses on the 41 / 48 routes to have cameras installed. It is not known at this time whether this intelligence “take” has proved useful to the Sheriff’s Department, but one can imagine others who would find its data quite useful.

I've already begun to exploit this data pool by requesting bus video and audio from IT Bus #808, which in November 2007 was used to move Olympia Police into the Port of Olympia. Their conversations were quite telling...

Audio from the TESC Valentines Day Uprising - Nine One One calls.

021808 TESC Riot 911 ph call (Error in date is original to the file):

021508 TESC Riot Call to EVPD:

021508 TESC Riot 2nd EVPD Ph call:

These are images made of the CAPCOM (Capital Communications) calls to 9-11 dispatch, showing who called and from what cell, where that cell phone was at the time of the call, and what dispatch did in relation to the call over the course of the evening. Enjoy!

I want to tap the knowledge of folks on OlyBlog who know something about police protocol. The unfortunate event at TESC sounds to me like the combination of an unruly crowd with poor police work. So, here are some questions:

• Was it just TESC cops, or were TCSO also involved?
• Does it make sense to try to arrest someone in the middle of a crowd? Something sounds not right about that.
• Could other techniques have been applied instead of direct intervention?
• In short: how should it have worked?