Sky Cop update - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

Sky Cop update

Coming this summer is Sky Cop.  It's the Toledo Police Department's new high-tech tool to help crack down on violent crime.

Engineers are working to get the massive video surveillance system online.  150 cameras will go up in two phases across the city.  Several officers will monitor them from the Real Time Crime Center which is being built inside the Public Safety Building.

"We're trying to get the cameras to Toledo and installed as soon as possible," says Toledo Police Chief Derrick Diggs.

Chief Diggs is ushering in a new era for his department with the addition of Sky Cop.

It's a video surveillance system that fundamentally changed the way the Memphis Police Department operates.

Back in April, Memphis police gave 13 ABC exclusive access inside what is called the Real Time Crime Center which has been in operation since 2006.    

42 screens display live video streaming in from surveillance cameras perched atop intersections on public streets and mobile trailers in parking lots.

The cameras help Memphis police make an average of 100 arrests a year.      

Here is an example of how the eyes in the sky and shoes on the ground work together.

This is surveillance video capturing a car burglary in progress.  The man takes a GPS off of the dashboard and walks away across the parking lot.  As it is happening, officers inside the Real Time Crime Center dispatch patrol officers and in less than two minutes arrest the suspect.

Since Sky Cop went up, overall crime has dropped nearly 30 percent in Memphis.  The murder rate there is at a three decade low.

Toledo hopes to mimic the success in Memphis.    

"The Real Time Crime Center is almost being completed. We expect our criminal intelligence people to be inside that and utilizing that sometime by the end of the week, " says Chief Diggs.

The Sky Cop cameras are not expected to go up until later in July.