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Tampa police teams up with Amazon to monitor video feeds and watch for criminals

Now Tampa PD says it's joining the neighbors' community so it can monitor those same video feeds with the intent of using the images to hopefully catch criminals.

The Tampa Police Department is teaming up with Amazon’s Neighbors app.

The idea is to let investigators see video from a network of cameras around the area, and hopefully track down criminals - quicker.

The app lets people share video taken by their private security cameras.

It’s a quick way to alert those nearby about suspicious activity.

Now Tampa PD says it’s joining the neighbors' community so it can monitor those same video feeds with the intent of using the images to hopefully catch criminals.

Signing up and sharing video is completely voluntary, so police say it’s not a privacy issue.

For the most part, the neighbors' app is helpful to nab porch pirates and would-be burglars, as it did this week in South Tampa.

But in Seminole Heights, not long ago, video was also a helpful tool in the department’s attempt to catch an alleged serial killer.

Tampa police searched hundreds of videos taken by home and business security cameras as part of a similar Tampa PD initiative called the Register Every Camera or REC program.

Residential and commercial cameras are, again, voluntarily registered with police so officials know who might have video in an area where a crime occurs.

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