Spring Lake Heights Police invites residents to join them in “Operation Watch Dog”

Spring Lake Heights residents and businesses can now do a little more to help police solve crimes in the community.

Get our free mobile app

The police department in Spring Lake Heights is the latest Jersey Shore town to initiative the "Operation Watch Dog" program in their town.

SLHD Police announced that they're expanding their relationship with the community by providing a digital way they can work together through this program.

It's a similar concept to towns like Toms River, Manchester and Lakewood, all who implemented the "Operation Watch Dog" program in their towns back in 2018, and is a way to provide police access to security footage that may have caught a suspect running or driving by or even caught an accident on tape.

You don't have to participate, it's all voluntary, but if you were a victim, you might want all the help possible to find out what happened.

It's also confidential, so if you grant police access to the video, your name and identification won't go any farther.

Here is a partial statement from Spring Lake Heights Police.

"It expedites the retrieval of footage from surveillance systems close to the crime scene in an effort to uncover criminal activity. It also reduces the number of officers assigned to canvass the area around a crime scene for operational surveillance systems.

This allows officers assigned to the investigation to be deployed to other tasks in the investigation thereby enabling a higher degree of efficiency of resources.

Please note that this program DOES NOT give police the ability to tap into any home or business surveillance feeds.

If you are signed up for Operation Watch Dog and a crime occurs in your neighborhood, you may be contacted by a Spring Lake Heights Police Officer who would ask if you could examine the time frame in question for potential video footage.

If your equipment was able to record pertinent information, we would arrange a convenient time and day to retrieve the footage from you.

Your participation in Operation Watch Dog always remains 100% voluntary and your personal information will be kept confidential and not for public dissemination.

Only law enforcement personnel can view the surveillance footage.

Operation Watch Dog is just another useful tool which offers residents and businesses the opportunity to partner with the Spring Lake Heights Police Department in the fight against crime throughout the Borough.

If you would like to participate in this program residents and businesses are encouraged to register their cameras at no cost."

If you're interested in participating in this program in Spring Lake Heights, contact Sgt. Zachary Ramp at zramp@springlakehts.com or Ptl. Ian Davis at idavis@springlakehts.com for more information or to resister your system.

You can follow Vin Ebenau on Twitter and Instagram and email news tips to vin.ebenau@townsquaremedia.com.