Digital billboards help FBI corral suspects nationwide

By Denny Walsh, The Sacramento Bee (Calif) - 1/31/2009

On Nov. 9, Christopher Ellis was apprehended in a multi-state crime spree that included a bank robbery in Kentucky, a kidnapping and carjacking in Georgia and a home invasion in Tennessee.

Sharp color photographs of Ellis and the truck he was driving went up on digital billboards throughout the Southeast.

That produced a tip that led to a quick arrest.

It's the FBI's newest tool, and it's working great. In partnership with four outdoor advertising firms, the bureau has gained access since December 2007 to 1,000 digital billboards on the highways and byways of America's big cities, including Los Angeles.

"They deliver a lot of eyeballs," said FBI Assistant Director John Miller. "These are not your father's billboards.

"Like a computer system," Miller continued, "they can be changed at a moment's notice -- quite handy when time is of the essence and you're searching for that missing teen or dangerous felon."

Thus far, the network has directly resulted in the capture of 14 fugitives and many more indirectly as part of the bureau's overall publicity strategy, all at essentially no cost to the taxpayers.

Companies donating the valuable space are Clear Channel Outdoor, Adams Outdoors, Lamar Advertising and Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia.

Featured in starring roles on the big-screen billboards have been 200 fugitives, suspected bank robbers, missing persons, runaway minors and individuals wanted for questioning by local authorities in connection with homicides.

Agents in the FBI's Newark, N.J., field office caught up with armed robbery suspect Walter Haskell in October after his image was plastered on digital billboards across the state, generating tips that led them to Haskell.

"If we have a crack at over a quarter-million people seeing that photo every day, then we have a very good chance at catching the person we're after," said Special Agent Sean Quinn of the Newark office. "The exposure gets us started."

Richard Franklin Wiggins Jr. was arrested Nov. 12 on charges of money laundering and ties to a drug trafficking organization just three weeks after his face went up on digital billboards in the Norfolk, Va., area.

Family and friends saw the picture and insisted he turn himself in.