Imagine being a police officer racing to an emergency at a school or business and being able to see what is happening inside the building while you're driving to the scene.
A new program adopted this year by the Springfield Police Department can transmit live images from security cameras across the city to computer screens on the dashboards of police cars.
"For the last 10 months or so, I've been overseeing that rollout to our department and going out to different businesses and speaking with people about integrating their private camera systems with this platform," Lt. Tim Jenkins told Illinois Times.
Sacred Heart-Griffin High School, Green Family Stores automotive dealerships and the YMCA of Springfield recently integrated with the program called Fusus. And the Springfield District 186 school board voted in August to integrate the security cameras in all of the city's public schools into the network.
"District 186 is in the implementation phase of this," said district spokesperson Rachel Dyas. "We signed the agreement, and now we're just doing the back-end work. The (information technology) work is happening. So, we just need them to connect their system to ours and we'll be on."
Dyas said since there are many security cameras within the multiple school campuses, it will take time for all of the district's schools to be integrated into the system.
The YMCA integrated its cameras with the law enforcement system in early September.
This will make patrons at the Springfield YMCA's two campuses safer, said Lou Bart, the organization's marketing and communications director.
"We can sometimes have 1,000 to 1,200 people in the building on a single day. And so, if there were some kind of an incident, we like the idea that the police could see what is going on through connecting to our cameras before they get here," Bart said. "It gives them a way of distinguishing between somebody who is a threat, somebody who is a member and somebody who is a staff member... It's positive for everybody. It creates safety for the police as they're coming in. We also think it's safety for our members and safety for our staff."
His view was echoed by SHG principal Teresa Saner and assistant principal Bob Brenneisen. The Catholic high school also recently integrated its cameras with the police system.
"It came about because of our whole school safety crisis management plan," Brenneisen said. "We're going to make sure that the first responders who arrive have live feeds of our video so that they know in real time what's going on at the school and they are not having to rely on eyewitness testimony, which is not always the most reliable."
He said he became aware of the program when the police department reached out to the school to see if would like to participate.
Lt. Jenkins said much of his job these days is explaining the benefits of participating in the program to various businesses and organizations.
Jenkins said recently there was a disagreement in the lobby of a Springfield business between someone who refused to leave and an employee. He said the responding officer was able to arrive already aware of who was causing the problem by monitoring the situation on the way to the scene.
In addition to the private cameras in schools and businesses, the system also includes cameras that monitor the downtown area.
"There was an incident several months ago where a guy crashed in his car and it burst into flames. Officers were on scene, and they had pulled him from the car. ... They were able to pull up video immediately and see what happened in that instance," Jenkins said.
The first year of the program is being funded by a $150,000 grant from the Illinois Attorney General's Office, Jenkins said. There is no cost for businesses and organizations to integrate cameras into the system. So far, about 800 local cameras are part of Fusus, Jenkins said. This includes cameras at between 25 and 30 businesses, he added.
"Some places only give us four or five cameras. And then I just installed with Sangamon Towers and they had 93 cameras in their buildings. We're partnering with Springfield Housing Authority and I think we have three or four different sites (for them) up now."
Jenkins said since officers are only able to log in to a particular camera when they are responding to a call at that address, there shouldn't be significant privacy concerns.
"This can only be used for law-enforcement purposes. They couldn't log in to see if a particular business has a lot of customers and whether it's a good time to shop," he said.
Bart, of the YMCA, added, "There's no negative. There's no downside to it. (If) people complained about cameras being everywhere, I would say, 'Don't do anything that you don't want to be on camera.' It is pretty basic."