News headline from the Redlands Police Department:

Downtown surveillance cameras were credited with the arrests of suspects in an auto burglary on Monday and vandalism of city property on Tuesday.

Shortly before 6:00 p.m. on August 6th, a witness reported two men breaking into a pickup truck in the south parking lot of the Krikorian movie theater at 340 North Eureka Street.

Based on the witness description, a camera operator in the Redlands Police Department dispatch center located the suspects in another area outside the theater and maintained surveillance on them while directing officers to the location.  The suspects were contacted by officers as they stood in front of the theater.  Officers also located property stolen from the vehicle nearby.

Arrested were Ryan Charles Tracy, 25, and Kyle Aaron Williams, also 25.  Both men are local transients.

Further investigation later connected Tracy to a stolen vehicle that had been located in a parking lot at 11 East Colton Avenue on July 28th.  The vehicle had been stolen earlier that day from Moreno Valley.

In a separate incident, shortly after 11:00 p.m. on August 7th, a surveillance camera operator witnessed a suspect using a marker to vandalize a city-owned trash bin in an alley behind a business in the 300 block of Orange Street.  The camera operator maintained surveillance of the suspect as he vandalized another city-owned trash bin.

Police contacted Joshua Paul Alonza, 22, a few minutes later in an alley near Fifth Street with the marker in his possession.  Alonza had a $100,000 warrant for prior vandalism.  He was arrested on the warrant and cited for the additional vandalism.

Anyone with additional information on either of these incidents is asked to contact Redlands Police at 909-798-7681, or anonymously by texting 274637 using the keyword “REDTIP.”

The downtown surveillance cameras, approved by the City Council in November 2006, are part of a system that includes more than 100 cameras located in strategic areas of the City.  The surveillance system is part of the Redlands Police Department’s strategy to leverage existing technology as “force multipliers.”  The pan-tilt-zoom capable cameras can be viewed and controlled in the Police Department dispatch center, putting police “on scene” for incidents in public areas downtown even before the arrival of patrol units.

The project has been funded since 2006 by a combination of state and federal technology grants and private donations.

Filed under Headline

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

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