Surveillance System Helps Protect Popular San Diego Beach

San Diego draws millions of tourists every year and is home to miles of beautiful beaches and luscious scenery. But just like any large city, law enforcement must constantly wage battle against an ever-growing number of criminals.

One area of concern for San Diego was Mission Beach. The most popular beach in the city draws throngs of visitors and is home to numerous businesses.

And in 2006, police reported the largest number of violent crimes in the beach’s history, including two sexual assaults. In response, residents collected more than $30,000 in private donations for a video surveillance system. An additional $80,000 was raised in a bond proposition.

With funding set, the city looked to local provider Dotworkz for a solution.

"The city's chief concerns were to deter crime on Mission Beach, to create a visual record of any incidents that may occur and to improve police response times," said William Ferris, CEO of Dotworkz. "An analog CCTV system could not deliver what they needed. IP-based video, however, could achieve those objectives and more, plus add the capability for expansion without significant capital costs."

The system now includes five Sony SNC-RZ50 PTZ network cameras to cover the relatively small perimeters of Belmont Park. The cameras feature 26x optical zoom, allowing police to zoom in on small or distant details.

And with the cameras located in a residential area, four of the five cameras are configured with Dotworkz “city link” mesh option in the 5.8 GHz wireless spectrum instead of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi. With the wireless option, the cameras transmit high-resolution video at up to 20 fps with 108 megabyte throughput back to the police command center two miles away.

"Wireless connectivity gives the Mission Beach system additional flexibility and scalability, plus saved the municipality the cost of wiring and installation labor," Ferris said. "Right now, the video is sent to the northern division area's command center, but in the future roving police may add camera access on their laptops, PDAs and smart phones."

The system is tied together with the NetDVMS software from On-Net Surveillance Systems. The software gives law enforcement in the command center immediate and centralized access to all of the cameras and schedulable PTZ patrol sequences when the system is not being actively manned.

About the Author

Brent Dirks is senior editor for Security Today and Campus Security Today magazines.

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