El Paso County covers 2,130 square miles of Colorado, and the EPC sheriffís office is responsible for investigating the majority of felony crimes against people and property in the unincorporated portions of the county, including Falcon. Jacqueline Kirby, media relations manager for the EPCSO, said community cooperation is an integral part of solving many of those crimes.The Community Video Partnership program is one way the community can help, and the EPCSOís website states that video evidence is one of the best methods for apprehending criminals.ìIt is an extremely helpful tool in real-time, and we get the physical description of the person,î Kirby said.ìIf multiple crimes are committed by the same person, we can compare those images and not just the descriptions.îThe program works on a voluntary basis with community members registering their camera or cameras, although registration is not required to submit a video to the EPCSO, she said. Because the department does not have a way to track which crimes have been solved with the help of registered cameras and those solved with the help of videos submitted by unregistered cameras, it is hard to quantify the efficacy of the program, Kirby said. However, submitting a video to the EPCSO is the only way to ensure the crime can be investigated, she said.Often people will post a video to a social media site, but the EPCSO does not have enough resources to spend time searching for the videos and then investigate them, Kirby said. Additionally, there is no way to track whether crimes are connected, unless multiple videos from registered cameras are submitted, she said.ìWhen people post on social media (and do not submit their video to the sheriffís office), it can create a false narrative,î Kirby said. ìUntil the crime is investigated, what is originally reported is, most of the time, different in pieces or in totality of what actually happened. Letting us have that information allows us to investigate it.îRecently, the EPCSO was able to use security footage as a piece of the overall investigation into the disappearance of 11-year-old Gannon Stauch on Jan. 27, she said. Although this footage was just part of the larger investigation into Gannonís disappearance, other similar surveillance footage can be key to making an arrest in another crime or provide additional clarity to what the EPCSO already has gathered from their investigation, Kirby said.ìWe do have dedicated personnel in Falcon,î she said. ìThat was made a priority by Sheriff Elder when we saw exponential growth in crime in that area. But, if people are concerned about crime in their area and we do not get that information to investigate it and apprehend the suspect, it does no good to post it on Facebook. It can have the opposite effect by inciting fear and panic.îViable information from a video of a crime in a particular neighborhood allows the department to investigate the crime, and the EPCSO crime analyst can use that footage to see if there are other crimes in the area, Kirby said.ìIt is a two-fold benefit,î she said. ìWe can investigate that particular crime, but we can also look for connections and patterns.îWhile any video footage is better than no footage, it is difficult to track how well the system is working without having the camera registered with the EPCSO, Kirby said.According to the EPCSOís website, registration requires contact information and basic information about the location, direction and recording quality of the camera. Registration is free and information provided is kept confidential, the website states.ìThe El Paso County Sheriffís Office will have no direct access to any private video systems through the Community Video Partnership program and must ask the owner to view or make a copy of any footage,î the website states.Ultimately, Kirby said the system is not a ìBig Brotherî type of monitoring system.ìIt is a partnership with the sheriffís office to work with the community to make the community safer,î she said.
