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More than Irish eyes to shine on Long Beach parade
(Newsday (Melville, NY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 6--As they patrol the streets of Long Beach for the Irish Heritage Festival Saturday, Long Beach police will be equipped with another set of eyes -- a high-tech surveillance system that promises to give officers a panoramic view to scope out any mischief at an annual event that draws tens of thousands of people.
"This is going to give us a bird's-eye view of what's going on," said Long Beach Sgt. Bill Dodge, as he worked Friday with the two companies who are setting up a "mesh network" along the parade route and at key locations around the day-long festival.
Dodge and Mark Satinsky, founder of AgileMesh, one of the firms installing the equipment for the day with another firm called Firetide, said the technology consists of an army of cameras that can transmit data to various locations, giving officers a "full-perimeter" view of the event -- a celebration that has at times been marred by the misdeeds of drunken party-goers.
Last year, there were seven arrests and 92 summonses issued, compared to nine arrests and 27 summonses at the 2005 event. Most of them were for drinking in public. In past years, Long Beach Medical Center also has treated more than the usual amount of patients with head trauma and other injuries from fighting.
"We're going to be transmitting primarily video," Dodge said. "It could be used to communicate to police cars. It's amazing technology. This is a demonstration to prove it would work under our circumstances."
But civil libertarians, while agreeing that such monitoring can be a powerful law enforcement tool, expressed some concern over whether the images captured would be stored and used for a non-law enforcement purpose.
"Our concern would be if this information is utilized for anything other than law enforcement activity, how it's being stored and who's watching the stuff," said Tara Keenan-Thompson, executive director of the Nassau branch of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "But if it's utilized for law enforcement purposes, it might contribute to making the streets safer on that particular day."
Representatives of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, sponsors of the event, could not be reached for comment.
Satinsky, who is a founder of the Dallas-based company, said the technology allows officers to zoom in or take wide-angle shots of a location as they respond to an incident.
Staff writer Susana Enriquez contributed to this story.
To see more of Newsday, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsday.com
Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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