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Sheriff's real‑time center launches camera registry; Villa Park urged to register home cameras
Summary
The Orange County Sheriff's Department briefed the council on crime statistics and introduced a new camera registry to speed investigations by asking residents to register private surveillance devices; the sheriff's analysts said 1,000 residents have enrolled in the first month of the program.
Captain Miguel Sotelo presented Villa Park crime statistics for Feb. 25 through March 24 and said calls for service were slightly higher than the previous month, with 93 calls and 22 reports during the reporting period. He noted there were two residential burglaries and several grand‑theft reports; no crimes against persons were reported for the period.
Sarah Shervani, a crime analyst with the Sheriff's real‑time operations center, described a new camera registry launched about four weeks ago that asks residents to register contact information and the locations of private video systems. "We just launched it 4 weeks ago," Shervani said. "Since we launched the program, we've had a thousand residents register their cameras."
How it works
Registered residents receive an email request from the sheriff's department if their registered camera falls inside a mapped circle around an incident; residents can choose whether to review footage and submit it to investigators. Shervani said the registry does not give the department remote access to cameras and that participation is voluntary; she described it as a way to reduce door‑to‑door canvass time and to centralize outreach when deputies are investigating nearby incidents.
Community outreach and safety context
Sheriff staff encouraged residents to call in suspicious activity and to request vacation checks; Captain Sotelo said the department is preparing longer term statistics that will show quarterly crime trends and will share those with the council. Council members thanked the sheriff's staff and said they would publicize the registry in the city's outlets.
