New York City: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, DoITT Commissioner Paul J. Cosgrave and Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt today announced that, fulfilling a promise the Mayor made in his State of the City address, callers to 911 and 311 are now able to send photos or video to assist in crime fighting and report quality of life complaints. Callers to 911 will be able to send photos or video from a cell phone or computer to the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center, where relevant images may be used to assist in crime fighting or in responding to other emergencies. The public will be able to send pictures and videos from computers and web-enabled cell phones and PDAs to accompany certain 311 quality of life complaints. The New York City Police Department receives approximately 11 million 911 calls annually and the 311 Customer Service Center receives approximately 15 million calls each year.

Sending Photos and Video to 911

The police operators that staff the 911 call center have been trained to enter a special code in the Police Department’s internal communications system every time callers offer photographs or videos in connection with their emergency. The operators have also been trained to inform callers that a detective will be contacting them directly. The coded entry into the communications system automatically alerts the Real Time Crime Center and provides the 911 caller’s telephone number. A detective from the Real Time Call Center will personally call the victim or witness and provide a Real Time Crime Center address to which the photograph or video may be sent.

Depending on the case, the images may be shared widely with the public, with police officers on patrol, individual detectives or other law enforcement agencies. The images may also be used in concert with the Real Time Crime Center’s powerful data mining and link analysis capacity to identify and locate suspects as quickly as possible. The images may also be used to help in assessing and responding to emergencies.

The new 911 capacity comes a month after the NYPD added text messaging to it Crime Stoppers program. In addition to calling 1-800-577-TIPS, members of the public may now text message crime tips anonymously by texting CRIMES or 274637, and then entering TIP577.

Sending Photos and Video to 311

Customers may send up to three photos or videos per service request by logging onto nyc.gov from a computer or web-enabled mobile device. Customers may also tell their 311 operator they have a photo or video to send and the operator will then direct callers to the appropriate page on nyc.gov – through which customers can upload their picture or video files.

Photos or videos can be sent to 311 via nyc.gov for the following types of complaints, with additional complaint types to be added in the coming months:

*Potholes, damaged or missing traffic signs;
*Dirty vacant lot complaints;
*Street and sidewalk complaints;
*Parking meter, bus stop shelter or parking facility complaints;
*Complaints about City parks, such as general maintenance, damaged facilities, graffiti, and animal issues; and
*Damaged, missing or unsanitary public pay telephone complaints.

To report a problem online, customers can log onto nyc.gov to directly upload their pictures and videos along with complaint forms. A wide variety of file formats created by most cell phones are accepted.

This marks the first step in the City’s ability to receive pictures and videos from the public.  Next year the City will introduce additional infrastructure to further improve 911 and 311’s ability to receive pictures and videos from the public.

(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN)