Vindicated by video

Do you worry about the sprouting of surveillance cameras wherever you go? Some are thankful for it – and not just those doing the watching.
Some Baltimore leaders, including Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, favor installing more video cameras on city streets to watch for crime.

Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore County Police Department Chief James W. Johnson are among those who want cameras set up along Maryland streets and highways to catch drivers speeding through construction and school zones.

A petition drive to block the speed cameras failed. And some people in Baltimore see the police department’s video surveillance as that of an unblinking, fearsome Big Brother.

But two brothers in New York City have a bar’s security video to thank for their freedom after they were arrested by undercover detectives and accused of dealing drugs.

Police said they caught Max Colon (left, in the photo above) and Jose Colon dealing cocaine Jan. 4, 2008 in a Queens night club. Sitting in jail, wondering how to prove their innocence, Jose Colon noticed a security camera, he later told the Associated Press. What if that night club had video of their activity before the arrests that would clear them?

Such footage existed. The brothers’ attorney took it to the District Attorney’s integrity unit. Now it’s the police officers who’ve pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to appear in court June 26.