Cameras Read License Plates, Helping City’s Police
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Cameras mounted on the trunk of a New York Police Department squad car.
By AL BAKER
Published: April 11, 2011
When Luis Zeledon was captured by detectives, it was probably safe to say that he had not intended to be found. He was hiding in someone else’s apartment in Queens, taking refuge inside a closet.
Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times
At 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan, detectives operate the Real Time Crime Center, a computer network intended to help officers in the field.
But for all Mr. Zeledon’s evasiveness, the key to his arrest on murder charges in 2009 came days before the slaying even occurred — as he was driving his car.
The Police Department’s growing web of license-plate-reading cameras has been transforming investigative work. Though the imaging technology was conceived primarily as a counterterrorism tool, the cameras’ presence — all those sets of watchful eyes that never seem to blink — has aided in all sorts of traditional criminal investigations. The latest example came last month with the arrest of Marat G. Mikhaylich, a suspect in nine bank robberies in New York and New Jersey. Even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation had identified Mr. Mikhaylich through surveillance photos, he had managed to avoid arrest — until he added car theft to his criminal history.
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