Transit cameras have been reported as playing a major part in catching Ferrari’s alleged murderer. Seattle Times:
Witnesses described the shooter’s attire and detectives pored over surveillance footage from Metro buses and located their suspect on video. They were then able to show the suspect’s photo around and come up with a name, said one source with knowledge of the investigation.
Although Seattle has no stationary public crime cameras and police aren’t allowed by law to to use red light cameras to help solve crimes, there are a large number of cameras on King County buses.
Ferrari was shot while driving in the Central District on May 24. He is said to have been active on this blog.
Update 7/20:
I’ve since learned that Justin was a frequent reader, and commented under the user name justinf. Here are search results of all of his comments at STB. From what I’ve read he was intelligent, interesting, and knew his buses well.
Update 7/21:
More details have come out on how the alleged murderer was located and arrested.
Could we have a picture, and some of his contributions?
Mark Dublin
Here you go
http://www.centraldistrictnews.com/2012/07/20/alleged-ferrari-shooter-andrew-patterson-charged-with-second-degree-murder
[Butch] I believe Mark meant Justin’s picture. Here’s one, from Central District News.
The guy was on the bus?
At some point. The witnesses at the scene noted a “distinctive red jacket and shoes”, and detectives looked through bus footage for someone wearing those items. It’s unclear from the story how much footage they had to look through, or if witnesses saw him on a bus at some point. After they found someone wearing those items they used the footage to create pictures to show around.
I really think it would be a good memorial to Justin to post some of his contributions to the Seattle Transit Blog. Would this be hard to do?
Mark Dublin
Potentially libelous, if the footage is of the wrong guy.
Footage? What are you talking about?
I’ve updated the post with a search for his user name, justinf. This way readers can find his comments as well as their context.
From the Seattle Times article:
“As he exited the bus, he swiped an ORCA card, and detectives got a screen-captured still photo of him, according to charging papers.
Police began to circulate the photo and requested a search warrant for information about the ORCA card.
Metro records showed the card, which had been reported stolen, was used in and around the Federal Way Transit Center and Green River Community College in the hours before the shooting, charging documents say.”
How was he able to use an ORCA card that was reported stolen? I thought when a card is reported lost or stolen, it’s blocked.
I’ll take a guess. It’s the same reason it takes 24-48 hours for online reloads to become available.
Love ’em or hate ’em, cameras on a variety of forms of transit is growing. How much they prevent crime is arguable, but there can be no question they help catch criminals. From Cyclist’s helmet cams catching hit and run motorists (there’s an article in today’s Seattle Times about the proliferation of cyclists wearing helmet cams to catch conflicts with drivers), to the taxi cam in SeaTac helping to identify the cabbie’s killer, and now to a route 3 bus camera helping to catch this guy. While cams on transit don’t make me feel safer, they do make me feel like justice will be served if a crime is committed.
It’s amazing to me that such a small percentage of KCM coaches are CCTV equipped. With all that goes on around here, I’d think they would be eager to get cameras on all their coaches and major facilities.
It does look like all of the newest new coaches are rolling out with them installed, but, it will be several years before all the ones still on the roads without cameras are retired.
How many times have we heard “there were no surveillance cameras onboard” or something along those lines.
Glad to see that the system worked.
I do agree with the idea that I do not feel any safer with the cameras onboard (people are going to do what people are going to do, regardless of who’s watching, especially when other substances are involved), but the chances of catching the person(s) responsible for committing a crime are much better.
“It’s amazing to me that such a small percentage of KCM coaches are CCTV equipped.”
In the past, CCTV equipment was more expensive so Metro purchased a limited number of camera coaches and used them mostly on “problem” routes. It was rare that I got to drive them. These days more and more coaches come with CCTV. I *think* all RapidRide coaches have the equipment as do a large percentage of newer coaches.
I personally prefer driving the newer coaches as they have forward facing CCTV. If somebody cuts me off and I plow into them, the safety team/jury will be able to see exactly what happened and not have to rely on witness and drivers’ accounts. Arguably, they could prevent frivolous lawsuits but that’s another discussion.
I’ve seen enough russian dash-cam videos on reddit to know that is exactly what will happen.