ATLANTA — Iowa's Department of Transportation credits video recordings from its traffic cameras with helping law enforcement building cases connected to serious crimes.
There is no video recording though of a shooting on I-75 North in Cobb County on Wednesday. That is where a tractor-trailer driver was shot multiple times just north of Wade Green Road on the interstate.
"Right now we are hoping that someone saw something. Someone saw the vehicle and can give us a vehicle type and a tag, that would be fantastic if we could get an actual concrete tag for a vehicle," Sgt. Wayne Delk with Cobb County Police said Wednesday.
There is also no video recording from Thursday morning along 285 in DeKalb County near I-20. That is where a man was shot before sunrise.
Live pictures from hundreds of cameras operated by the Georgia Department of Transportation are viewable online, but the state doesn't store recordings of the footage.
11Alive occasionally will record the live pictures following an incident to show traffic delays following a serious crash or a shooting.
Both the shootings remain under investigation and no arrests have been made.
Larry Brown's 21-year-old daughter Sheikevious Young was shot on 285 near Church Street in DeKalb County in May of 2021. She later died at the hospital.
"I don't want to blame DeKalb County because I know they're just working with what they have," Brown said during an interview with 11Alive News following Wednesday's shooting in Cobb County.
Brown said he hasn't received any recent updates from DeKalb County Police, but his daughter's shooting remains unsolved and police have had little information to identify a suspect.
He believes the number of interstate shootings in the past year supports the need to record video from interstate cameras.
"We know this is going on and no one in leadership has taken the opportunity to decide that we need to at least start recording even if it is in select areas," Brown said.
GDOT spokeswoman Natalie Dale has previously told 11Alive, "The purpose of the cameras are to monitor real-time live traffic conditions."
If the state recorded video from the cameras it would then become a public record, meaning law enforcement agencies and the general public could request copies of recordings following incidents.
"This would require almost an entire staff or department just to pull records all day for people who want information for fender benders, etc. So the cost both to save and store that amount of data in addition to having staff available to pull video for all the requests would be exorbitant," Dale wrote.
State transportation departments in Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin though do record video from their cameras over interstates and other major roadways.
Minnesota is believed to be the first state to record traffic camera video and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has done so for more than a decade.
Jake Loesch, a spokesman for MnDOT, wrote by e-mail similar to GDOT, "MnDOT’s traffic cameras are primarily for the use of monitoring traffic conditions and providing real-time traffic information to the traveling public on our 511 system."
"The most frequent request we receive from law enforcement is to playback crashes that may have been caught on camera. Our cameras are generally zoomed out to give a broad overview of the road/corridor, but in that mode are not capable of reading license plates or identifying vehicle occupants," Loesch also wrote.
According to MnDOT in 2021, more than 3,200 requests for video from the cameras were received, between requests from both the general public and law enforcement.
In Iowa Sinclair Stolle, traffic management systems engineer, with Iowa DOT wrote, "Our videos have been used to help with law enforcement to support their cases for murders, child abductions, human trafficking, and stolen vehicles. We have also used these internally for training of our own DOT staff or law enforcement for traffic incident management practices. Another common request category is from attorneys for crash videos of their clients' incidents."
Iowa DOT has recorded video from its cameras since July 2014. Video is stored for 7 days, but once a clip is requested to be saved it is stored indefinitely.
According to Stolle, a team of 2 to 4 people shares the responsibility to pull video to fulfill requests, but the task is in addition to their other duties.
In 2020 Iowa DOT received 617 requests for video, 865 requests in 2021, and 87 requests so far in 2022.
New Jersey DOT spokesman Steve Schapiro wrote 11Alive, "These cameras are not designed for law enforcement purposes. However, law enforcement members may request a copy of video recordings for their use. Generally, law enforcement use video to confirm things like incident time of day or location."
NJDOT's footage is recorded on a 7-day loop. That means video that has been recorded by the state is only available to be requested for one week.
Schapiro explained, "The footage is stored on multiple servers and is voluminous, particularly when we began upgrading from older lower-quality cameras to HD cameras over the past few years. The storage requirement is the reason why footage is only saved for seven days before being recorded over."
Footage can be requested by completing an online form and paying a fee and according to Schapiro requests from the public are generally manageable.
"There are times when we do not receive requests for a few days and other times we receive multiple requests per day," he wrote.
According to information published by the U.S. DOT, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation records nearly all feeds from approximately 400 cameras with the video being stored for at least 72 hours.
"The Archive Video Administrator spends an average of six to eight hours per week processing zero to four requests per day each taking 15 to 60 minutes. The agency considers this a low burden since while there are many requests, there are adequate staff resources," an article from the U.S. Department of Transportation published in 2020 reads.