BILLINGS — A new program from the Billings Police Department, Project Eyes on the Block, is aimed at deterring crime in the Magic City. One local business owner, Dean Cromwell, believes this project is a first step in the right direction to make the city safer—especially after surveillance video at his business led to an arrest.
Cromwell purchased his business, The Spoke Shop, with his wife Callie 12 years ago. The business, located at 1910 Broadwater Ave. in Billings, is equipped with multiple surveillance cameras that Cromwell said have captured a variety of crimes over the years.
“Just to protect yourself and your business. A good video surveillance camera system is a pretty good investment,” Cromwell said on Tuesday. “There’s so many things that happen. Unfortunately, our little town’s getting a little too big. There’s a lot more crime than we realize."
A bike was stolen from the shop on Feb. 15, but Cromwell said the thief was quickly caught, thanks to the security footage.
"The guy made the decision to go in and just grab the bike quick. Took off with it. It happened just super quickly. We take a lot of precautions so those things don’t happen, but it happened to happen this time," Cromwell said. “We posted it on Facebook, and within 24 hours we had the bike back and the guy was arrested."
But this wasn't the first time crime has been caught on camera at the shop.
“We’ve had all kinds of interesting things, including a fistfight that we had on camera," Cromwell said. “We’ve had instances where there’s been minor car accidents. So someone backs into somebody’s car and decides to take off, well boom, you’ve got a car description. Sometimes if you’re lucky the camera catches the license plate."
And that video evidence can sometimes make or break a case. Tony Nichols, a public relations officer for the Billings Police Department, said Thursday that video evidence is helpful for officers.
“For investigations, especially with the crime issues that we’ve been having lately, sometimes it would be nice to have even more video footage. So it’s definitely something that’s going to help detectives, the patrol division, things like that. Just trying to find out who's doing these things,” Nichols said. “Hopefully it can deter some crime, maybe catch some criminals in the act of doing these crimes."
Nichols said this is something already being done in bigger cities, and officers always look at any relevant video when working on a case.
"Anything that happens, even at a retail store or something like that. We love to have that footage because it’s just more evidence to be able to get these people in jail. To be able to get a warrant request out for these people, something like that," Nichols said. "So pretty much darn near every investigation we do we like to use (video evidence).”
The project launched Thursday and already has more than 150 residents and businesses signed up to participate. Any person or business with cameras is urged to sign up in case a crime occurs in the area.
"In case a crime happens in the neighborhood, they can look on that database and say, ‘Oh, somebody at this address has a camera,’" Nichols said. "They go knock on that door and they see if they can have that camera footage to look at."
According to Nichols, only officers have access to the database.
“We’re not going to access your IP address. We are strictly coming and knocking on your door saying, ‘Hey, can we look at your video?’" Nichols said. "They’ll burn a copy of the video if it’s of any relevance to the case.”
And officers are excited about the new program.
“We’re just real excited to get it pushed out. We’ve had a lot of responses so far, so that’s real exciting for us," Nichols said. "It’s going to be a great piece to the community I think. So we’re jacked for it."
To learn more about the new program or to sign up, click here.
“When you’ve got video, you know, what do they say? A picture’s worth a thousand words," Cromwell said. "So a video’s worth a million words, I guess, right?”
