Carman-Ainsworth -- The high school's surveillance camera system will soon have a direct feed to the police department, according to school and police officials.
With upwards of 30 cameras keeping watch over the exterior doors and hallways of the school building, the new approach will allow township police to take a peep through the district's own lens without entering the premises, said Assistant Superintendent Russ Parks.
And the technology shouldn't cost the district any money, he said.
"If we have a situation in our high school and we lock down the building, they (the police) can bring a laptop into the parking lot, and access our system and see where everybody is at," Parks said. "It's really amazing."
The system should be up
and running by the end of the month, he explained.
While the police department has been overseeing installation of a different
security camera system along various commercial strips in the township, the
school system has been operating its own system, Parks said.
However, Flint Township police Officer Kevin Salter, who serves as the sole liaison officer in the school, oversees the school cameras.
Currently, the high school has cameras placed throughout the building, and along the roof, to monitor the situation inside, and keep an eye on those entering and exiting the school.
The digital cameras are activated by motion, and digital video recorders store the previous 30 days of images to a hard drive. The system was installed in the building during Easter weekend in 2005.
It's been very helpful in sorting fact from fiction. For example, when students get into fights, and give conflicting accounts of the incident, a look at the video recording can sort out the truth, Parks said.
During the first year of operation, the camera system were able to disprove the alibi of a student accused of stealing food in the cafeteria. When the student, professing his innocence, asked to see proof of the theft, he was shown the video confirming his guilt.
Flint Township police Sgt. James Iacovacci hopes the new layer of coordination between the police and high school officials leads to the installation of two new cameras on the top of the building, to replace the current ones there.
Parks said the school's
own rooftop surveillance capacity is somewhat limited because the cameras are
unable to zoom in on an object or take infrared images.
However, Parks said that replacing those two outside cameras with more
technically advance ones supplied by the police will cost the school district
about $10,000 to $12,000.