We're all looking for peace of mind when we leave our home.
The Howard County Police Department is the first law enforcement agency in the state to be a partner with “Ring” the company that runs the Neighbors app.
You don’t need to have a doorbell camera to participate.
“Once you download it and sign up you can view videos that your neighbors have chosen to share with their neighborhood and the police department,” said Howard County Police Spokesperson Lori Boone.
People have already caught things like phony electric company workers and a man stealing an entire bowl of candy on Halloween.
Now everyone can see those people’s faces because of the postings from community members doorbell cameras.
Boone said it will help catch porch robbers just in time for the Holidays.
“The popularity of online shopping a lot of packages are sent to people’s doorsteps,” Boone said. “With this Neighbors app you can use that to verify when your package was delivered. You can see if there have been similar thefts in your neighborhood that sort of thing. We’re really excited to use this as a tool coming up.”
It’s already paying dividends— helping police bring in the driver in connection to a deadly hit and run this week.
“We were able to post that video to the public and it brought the driver forward to us just this morning, so it was a big help already,” Boone said.
