(The Baltimore Sun)—
During a recent investigation into a fatal Federal Hill shooting, Baltimore Police Department detectives uncovered surveillance footage of the incident, revealing two potential suspects and allowing them to enlist the public’s help in their search.
Such crimes are frequently caught on surveillance video in today’s digital world, whether via electronics that are privately owned like Ring cameras, or publicly deployed citywide systems like Flock Safety, which builds systems that use artificial intelligence to track things like the sound of gunshots and then send the data to law enforcement. It’s no surprise that law enforcement in Baltimore and elsewhere are increasingly turning to such surveillance in their investigations.
On Sunday, three men were arrested in San Jose, California, after allegedly being caught on camera in connection with a machete attack in June 2024. Earlier this month, a Connecticut man was arrested after a woman recorded him violently swinging an infant. And in August, a man was arrested after he was caught on camera assaulting 74-year-old David Philpot in Fells Point, who later died in the hospital.
Video surveillance has played a vital role in a prosecution as it provides “objective, real-time evidence that can confirm or contradict witness testimonies, alibis and suspect behavior,” said James Bentley, a spokesperson for the Baltimore State’s Attorney Office, in an emailed statement.
“Unlike human recollections, video footage captures events precisely as they unfold, it can show the vehicle a suspect is in or the clothing they were wearing, offering a reliable record that can strengthen the credibility of a case,” Bentley said. “It can also help identify suspects, provide timelines, clarify the circumstances surrounding a crime, and even clear a suspect, making it invaluable in court proceedings.”
Baltimore Police did not respond to requests from The Baltimore Sun to provide data or insight into how the department uses video surveillance footage, including from Ring cameras, business security video and the public cameras police mount like Citiwatch.
Although surveillance footage has aided law enforcement with the investigation and attorneys with the prosecution, it also raises privacy issues for the average citizen, Reilly Stephens, counsel at Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit that represents clients during privacy litigations, told The Sun.
Law enforcement relying on surveillance footage to identify individuals and solve crimes comes at a cost too great, he said. That is particularly true when physical surveillance tools are still perfectly adequate at leading to other investigative tools like warrants for wiretaps and camera surveillance, Stephens said.
“Everything is a trade-off,” Stephens said. “We can solve more crimes and put a camera in everyone’s home and prevent a lot of violence. We can catch a lot of violence, but most people understand they don’t want that type of invasion of privacy. That is a bridge too far. It gives up too much privacy for not enough security.”
In a case Stephens is handling in Chicago involving license plate readers, he cites a Maryland case, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, as an example of how too much surveillance can be deemed unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable search and seizure by the government. That case resulted from a Baltimore grassroots organization challenging the BPD’s use of its new Baltimore Aerial Investigation Research program.
“Intended to track movements linked to serious crimes, the AIR program obtained about twelve hours of coverage of around ninety percent of Baltimore every day of the week, weather permitting, using surveillance planes that flew at least forty hours a week and were equipped with aerial cameras able to capture one image of up to thirty-two square miles per second,” the Harvard Law Review explained in a study of the case.
“All AIR imagery data, analyzed or not, were retained for forty-five days, while reports and associated imagery data were retained indefinitely as needed for legal proceedings and until the relevant statutes of limitations had expired,” it said.
In that case, because the Baltimore Police had aerial cameras keeping track of the location of every vehicle, the court deemed the program a Fourth Amendment violation, Stephens said.
“They are not just checking for a fleeing suspect, but they are aggregating you and I driving,” Stephens said. “They are storing this data, which they can do for months and sometimes years. When they decide they don’t like you, they now have a record of everywhere you have been.”
He added that while most business owners and residents having cameras are within their rights, in the case of Ring camera footage, giving law enforcement access to it can also cause privacy concerns, Stephens said.
“It is not clear that the people installing these things realize how easy law enforcement can access them[ Ring cameras],” Stephens said. “We see some privacy concerns with some of the internet-connected cameras that people are setting up in their homes.”
Ring does not disclose customer information in response to government demands unless required by legally binding documents such as a warrant, subpoena or court order, the company said in an emailed statement to The Sun.
“Ring will provide information to law enforcement on an emergency basis when there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, such as a kidnapping or an attempted murder,” Ring said in the statement. “These emergency requests are reviewed by trained professionals who disclose information only when that legal standard is met.”
As for using massive, urban area or police-department-linked systems like Flock, civil liberties advocates have long said that collecting data on items like license plates, video surveillance and things that sound like gunshots is a clear violation of people’s expectation of privacy.
“Working with police departments, neighborhood watches, and other private customers, Flock not only allows private camera owners to create their own ‘hotlists’ that will generate alarms when listed plates are spotted, but also runs all plates against state police watchlists and the FBI’s primary criminal database, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC),” the ACLU said in a statement.
“Flock’s goal is to expand to ‘every city in the United States,’ its cameras are already in use in over 2,000 cities in at least 42 states,” Flock said.