Skyline Camera Nets Arrest in First Hour of Service

Have you ever gone fishing and got a catch on the first cast? Wenatchee police had a similar experience last week when they arrested four juveniles on drug charges after witnessing some suspicious activity, all by using a newly installed camera.

The camera was online for less than an hour.

In fact, Wenatchee police officers and staff were only in the process of connecting the camera's feed to computers when they observed the illegal behavior.

"The [camera] pod went live that day." said Wenatchee Police Captain Edgar Reinfeld, "We were getting it set up on the chief's computer and ... the [School Resource Officer] happened to walk in and they were looking at some activity in a car that didn't look right. So the SRO went up there and discovered four juveniles in a parked car smoking marijuana."

One of the occupants of the vehicle, a 15-year-old male, was identified as having an arrest warrant and also was in possession of methamphetamines and marijuana. A 17-year-old male was also arrested and booked on drug possession charges, while two 17-year-old females were not arrested but will be cited later for possession of marijuana.

While Wenatchee PD used the camera as a means to make the arrest, the camera is actually owned by the city's parks department.

"With Skyline, the viewpoint there, it's been a controversial location with a lot of complaints about behavior ... for the last couple years." explained Reinfeld, "Skyline has been a location we've been looking at for about a year to put up a camera pod, but there was no power; there was a number of issues with infrastructure. Some other lighting got added up there which meant we added power, so a camera pod was placed up there by the parks department. These pods are all owned by parks and we have access to look at them. They've been used occasionally by us but not on a super-regular basis."