The way The Boston Globe and most other media outlets reported Officer Sean Collier’s death, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus policeman didn’t even see it coming. As he sat in his cruiser, the men suspected of the Boston Marathon bombings crept up to him, and Officer Collier was shot and killed.
Police officer spend a lot of time sitting in their cruiser waiting, watching and filling out reports. So what’s to keep an assailant from sneaking up on an officer distracted by other tasks? Now, there’s new technology available that could help protect them from being taken unawares.
Using devices already installed in many high-tech cars – backup cameras, traffic sensors and vehicle information systems that do things like lock and unlock doors and roll windows up and down – Randy Freiburger, a Ford engineer, designed a system that can detect movement an officer might not necessarily be able to see. In essence, it gives them eyes in the back of their heads.