Police upgrading in-car technology

SANDUSKY — The technology in Sandusky police cruisers pretty much compares to, today, watching a VHS in a VCR. Safe to say, it's outdated, creating inefficiencies when either officers or community members play back "dash-cam" footage from police-involved incidents. During a recent public meeting, city commissioners agreed to commit about $152,000 in public funds to purchase 15 in-car, audio-and-video systems. The new equipment should get installed by this fall, according to Sandusky police Chief Jared Oliver, who underscored its necessity: Q: What's the problem with what's in place today? And why is the new technology coming to Sandusky a significant upgrade? JO: The maintenance agreement with our current cruiser camera provider is expiring. The digital video recorder (DVR) that stores the video is also reaching its end of life and will need replaced, costing several thousand dollars. Rather than continuously incurring these costs for outdated equipment, we believe it is the right time to move forward with Axon, our current vendor for our body-worn cameras and Tasers. We currently run three disparate systems to manage our digital evidence, which is extremely time-consuming and makes it difficult to manage simple tasks, like providing public records requests or delivering evidence to public defenders. By selecting Axon as our preferred in-car vendor, we can realize a single digital-evidence management system to view incidents and cases while sharing this information seamlessly online. Additional benefits of having a single-vendor approach are all our devices can now be synced and centrally activated from body-worn cameras to cruisers and additional accessories. All interactions on body-worn cameras and cruiser cameras will be time-stamped and synced across the digital evidence platform. Axon was unanimously the clear and best solution from their camera, software, hardware and management solution platform based upon the quality, capabilities and compatibility with existing equipment. The proposed cost includes a free in-car upgrade on Year 5 at no cost to us. Q: How long has Sandusky police been equipped with technology like this? JO: There have been early versions of in-car cruiser cameras at SPD since at least the 1990s. The (current) in-car system was installed in 2006. The DVR used for storage and the other camera equipment has been updated twice since then. Q: Will all of the cruisers receive this technological upgrade? JO: All of our patrol cruisers, totaling 15, will have the new camera system installed. Q: Why is this important? JO: The use of cruiser in-car systems has become a critical tool in safeguarding the actions and rights of citizens and police officers throughout the country. They are designed to: • Capture cruiser audio and video, both internally and externally, to document events as interactions between police officers and the citizens are taking place • Enhance the law enforcement operator's ability to document and review statements and actions for both internal reporting requirements, document evidence and for courtroom preparation/presentation; Officers shall have access to view and utilize the recordings from the in-car systems for training purposes and to further investigate their cases. • Preserve visual and audio information for use in current and future investigations • Enhance the public trust by preserving factual representations of officer‐citizen interactions in the form of video and audio recordings.