SEATTLE - Could images from red-light cameras have led Seattle police to a pair of killers?
The ubiquitous cameras are mounted a short distance from the Pioneer Square intersection where Nicole Westbrook, 21, was shot to death in April by a gunman in a passing car. Other cameras are in the Central Area, not too far from where Justin Ferrari, 43, was killed while driving with his family about a month later.
Detectives wonder if the cameras may have captured images - a fleeing car or a gunman's clothing, for example - that could have helped investigators.
But police are barred by state law from accessing and using images from the cameras for anything other than traffic enforcement. Still, the knowledge that the cameras could provide vital clues in the unsolved slayings is equal parts tantalizing and frustrating for detectives.
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Washington is among the few states that bar police from using images from red-light cameras in criminal investigations. The way the 2005 law is tailored, even if a homicide, abduction or any other serious crime occurs within full view of the cameras, the images cannot be used by police, said King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Don Raz.
The tight restriction was written into the law to ease concerns about violating privacy rights, said the bill's author, state Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, a Democrat.
"Everybody is always afraid of Big Brother," she said. "You always have that. People are afraid of losing their freedoms and I understand that."
In other states, images from red-light cameras have been used to solve a variety of crimes.
In Polk County, Fla., police arrested suspected cattle rustlers last year after their pickup was photographed running a red light by a camera, according to a report in a Lakeland, Fla., newspaper.
A red-light camera in Tempe captured images of a 21-year-old college student being dragged to her death when a drive-by purse snatcher caught the student's hands in the purse strings. Police traced the car to its owner through the images taken by the camera, according to published reports.
King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg believes it's time for the Washington state Legislature to revisit the law and allow traffic-light images to be used for nontraffic investigations.
"There has never been an expectation of privacy in public. There should not be a bar to criminal investigations looking for the movement of cars on public streets," Satterberg wrote in an email. "We will work to fix this problem for police investigators in the next legislative session."
The placement of red-light cameras in cities across the nation has been met by protests, lawsuits and grass-roots campaigns to ban them. In Washington, the cameras have been fought in the courts by groups that view them as indiscriminate cash cows for cities.
While Haugen said she has never heard discussions about allowing law enforcement to access red-light images to solve crimes, she agrees it should be allowed.
But Doug Honig, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, disagrees. He fears that changing the law to allow use of the images for criminal investigations could lead to even more intrusive use of the photos, calling it "a classic example of mission creep."
"We, of course, have to see the details of the proposal. We're very skeptical of it," Honig said.
