April 27, 2007

Campus Safety Gains Sharper Vision With New Breed of Surveillance Cameras

By JOSH FISCHMAN and ANDREA L. FOSTER

Christopher Elser, a junior at the Johns Hopkins University, tried to stop a burglar in his off-campus apartment in 2004. He was fatally wounded. Seven months later, Linda Trinth, a Hopkins senior, was killed in her apartment. Fears of more crime in the university's Baltimore neighborhood spurred the school into action.

So it got smart. "We installed what we call 'smart TV,'" says Edmund G. Skrodzki, executive director of campus safety and security. During the past two years, the