Little Rock police moving into second phase of real-time crime center

Crime Center will use cameras of residents

Maj. Ty Tyrrell shows how the Real-time Crime Center technology works Friday at the Little Rock Police Department headquarters.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
Maj. Ty Tyrrell shows how the Real-time Crime Center technology works Friday at the Little Rock Police Department headquarters. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)


Little Rock police on Friday began letting residents and businesses register or directly integrate their security cameras with the agency's Real-Time Crime Center in what officials described as phase two of implementing the new technology in the city.

The rollout plan, called Connect Little Rock, gives residents or business owners who already have doorbell cameras or other security cameras the option to share the footage captured by their cameras with police in one of two ways, neither of which would involve police regularly monitoring their footage, said Maj. Ty Tyrrell, head of the agency's Headquarters Division.

The first way is to register a camera with police through connectlittlerock.org, which simply lets police know a camera is present at a given location, without giving officers access to live or recorded footage from it, Tyrrell said.

If a crime occurs, investigators can contact the camera's owner and ask to review the footage. Even if they register their cameras, people are not obligated to share the footage. Footage can be shared by email, and police will only save a copy of the video if it is thought to contain worthwhile evidence.

"They tell us when and how they want us to access their cameras," Tyrrell said.

The second option, which is geared toward businesses that are likely to have numerous cameras, is to directly integrate their cameras with the crime center at police headquarters on Markham Street.

This is done by plugging a box-shaped device from Fusus, the company that makes the software that powers the crime center, into the security system's DVR, Tyrrell said. Fusus' software allows police to create and monitor a digital map of the city with the location of police patrol units, surveillance cameras and reported crimes.

Cameras directly integrated in the crime center's system using these boxes, which Fusus calls cores, give police access to the live camera feed, letting them give information to first responders in real time, Tyrrell said. However, police will only view the live feed when it is thought that a crime is occurring, he said.

On Friday night, the connectlittlerock.org site showed 472 cameras integrated and 10 registered.

Practically all of those integrated cameras are city-owned cameras that have been connected to the crime center since it launched last August, while the handful of registered cameras, which include ones owned by police Chief Heath Helton, have largely been used to test the system, Tyrrell said.

The hope is that the number of registered cameras will rise sharply as residents buy in to the program, Tyrrell said. Helton previously said he hopes to have 4,000 cameras registered with the system by the end of the year.

The number of directly integrated cameras should rise as well, Tyrrell said, as schools and other large businesses in the city join the initiative. The Little Rock School District has about 4,000 cameras, he said, and the district has expressed interest.

To directly integrate cameras, a school or business would buy one of the Fusus cores to connect to their security system's DVR, Tyrrell said. The department has about 45 Fusus boxes available for small businesses in high-crime areas that may not be able to afford one otherwise, he said, but they will expect larger businesses to meet them halfway by buying a box themselves.

The Fusus website did not publicly list prices for the cores, but Tyrrell said he thought the price was several hundred dollars.

One advantage of businesses using their own cores is that they would have access to an app that gives them a higher level of control over the cameras integrated with police, said Sgt. Troy Dillard, who commands the crime center.

"The beautiful thing about this for people we partner with is that they get to control which cameras we have access to," Dillard said.

Some business owners may not want to connect the cameras in the rooms they count cash in, or hospitals can elect to give police 24/7 access to external cameras but only allow them to view interior cameras when there is an emergency there, Dillard said.

Dillard was optimistic about adoption of the new system over the coming months, he said.

"We've been getting buy-in from the people we've talked to," he said.

The information provided by the surveillance cameras, when used in tandem with technology like license plate-reader cameras that are already connected to the system, can give officers and firefighters on the ground a wealth of information before they arrive on scene, which can change the way they respond, Tyrrell said.

"If we understand a situation better before we walk in the door, you're always gonna get a better response," he said.


  photo  Sgt. Troy Dillard talks about the Real-time Crime Center capabilities during a meeting with members of the press Friday at the Little Rock Police Department headquarters. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
 
 


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