Flatvision Industry News

Police forces and other agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly using digital out-of-home media in their hunts for both criminal suspects and missing people, prompted by past successes. In the US, alleged bank robber Chad E. Schaffner was arrested this month in Missouri after a spell on the run which had seen him make the FBI’s “most wanted” list as well as featuring on digital billboards in seven states.

The decision to put Schaffner on the screens – whose owners generally donate spots free of charge for public-interest purposes such as law enforcement and locating missing children – was made by the FBI, which began using digital billboards in Philadelphia in 2007 and took the project nationwide after that exposure led to the apprehension of two suspects.

Schaffner was wanted for armed robbery, bank robbery, burglary and receiving stolen property.

“This case is an emblematic example of the importance of public/private sector alliances in bringing criminals to justice in today’s information age” said Richard Lambert, special agent in charge of the FBI in Knoxville, Tennessee, quoted in a local report.

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, officers are hoping that out-of-home media will work as well for them in their hunt for a killer.

Digital billboards throughout the county depict Damon Adams, a local man who was shot dead during a robbery at his store in West Allis this summer. The spots show a picture of Adams’s shop, Dame’s Spot, as well as a phone number on which members of the public can give information about the incident.

Again, it was earlier successes with digital billboards – in this case the solution of crimes in the Wisconsin cities of Kenosha and Racine – that prompted police to try the medium again.

On the spot

Across the US, local outdoor-media owners as well as national firms contribute billboard airtime to the initiatives.

But while many such appeals are by their nature focused on specific localities, some campaigns – like the dragnet for Chad E. Schaffner – reach much further. For example, the FBI is currently running a nationwide series of digital-billboard spots in an effort to identify unknown sex offenders (pictured).

Other campaigns take advantage of digital out-of-home’s tight geographical targeting. In South Carolina, three digital billboards have been aiding the search by several agencies and organisations for missing teenager Brittanee Drexel. The 17-year-old comes from Rochester, New York, but was last seen in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on vacation with friends.

And in Britain, police are going a step further and employing mobile out-of-home technology to get their message to the right people in the right areas.

The South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire police forces in the north of England have both been using vehicles carrying large digital screens for projects including community-relations messaging in the suburbs of Doncaster, and an appeal for information about missing York woman Claudia Lawrence (pictured).

(See article at: http://www.screens.tv)

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