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August 2016: Police credit aerial surveillance program with closure of murder case

Posted at 12:15 PM, Dec 28, 2016
and last updated 2016-12-28 12:15:11-05

In August, a previously undisclosed aerial surveillance program used by Baltimore Police sparked criticism from civil liberties advocates and others who said the police weren’t being transparent.  

Police likened the program to the city’s network of crime watch cameras, and pointed to a murder case they said the program helped to close.

RELATED: Baltimore Police defend aerial surveillance program

Police said the July 11 murder of Robert McIntosh, 31, would have gone unsolved if not for the images captured by the surveillance plane.

"They weren't getting much cooperation and it was problematic. This was a case that was literally sitting on the shelf until analysts were able to tell him, 'here's what we have’,” T.J. Smith, spokesman for the Baltimore City Police Department, told members of the media in August.  "The detective came to me today to tell me if it weren't for this, this would be an open cold case, because he had absolutely nothing to go on."

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