A network of both public and private cameras, tied into the BPD's computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, system allows near-immediate access to live video across the city, especially in high-crime areas, says Assistant City Manager Jeremiah Bergquist.
Money for the cameras is coming from a $978,450 grant from the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget.
What form the system will ultimately take, however, is not set in stone. The city has money in hand but still has to go through an established process for selecting the company it will hire to install the system, and grant money typically comes with its own stipulations.
However, "There's only a few companies out there that provide the service that we envision," Bergquist said.
Two of those are Fusus and Flock Safety.
On its website, Flock bills its product as being capable of helping reduce crime in a community by up to 70 percent and protecting "against property crime, violent crime, stolen vehicles and more." Its website also states that the company's cameras are purpose-built to pick up on fine details like license plate numbers.
Fusus calls its product "a public safety ecosystem that combines video with other utilities like CAD data, gunfire detectors, real-time officer geolocator feeds, a registry map of all the public and private cameras in your region, a multi-media tips line for the public, and a digital evidence vault for investigators."
It was on their systems that Bergquist based his proposal to the Brunswick City Commission, which he presented on Wednesday.
The first step would be 14 cameras installed at major intersections: Altama Avenue's intersections with Community Road, Fourth Street and First Street; Glynn Avenue at Fourth Street, Fourth Avenue and Parkwood Drive; Norwich Street at Fourth Street, Gloucester Street and I Street; Newcastle Street at Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue; and Gloucester Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Glynn Avenue.
The cameras are less of the focus than the digital infrastructure behind them, Bergquist explained — an infrastructure into which any camera, public or private, could be integrated with the owner's consent.
The immediate benefit is the potential to drastically slash time spent on investigations, he said. Crimes often don't happen during business hours, and officers having to wrangle private surveillance camera owners to get footage of an incident can sometimes stall getting an investigation off the ground.
"We respond to a call at 2 a.m. and have to call the business owner to access the camera, they don't answer for an hour, and then they do answer (and) it takes them an hour to get there," he said. "... (This is) what would be an all day event of going business to business, seeing if they have a camera, can we access it, who do we need to talk to, do we need a thumb drive ... This is all instant."
Per Bergquist's written proposal to the city commission, "The cameras will not only record video in real time but will allow public safety to retrieve that video instantly."
"The system has an artificial intelligence component which allows the software to search the video," according to the written proposal. "Not only can it search (through footage) for items such as vehicles, but (it) also allows the camera to read license plates as well.
"When searching the system with specific details such as a vehicle color or model it reduces the amount of time spent looking for evidence and gives law enforcement a greater chance of apprehending suspects or vehicles."
The uses of the cameras for law enforcement don't end there. They can be used for a "multitude of scenarios," including monitoring "traffic flow, collisions and large crowds."
Such a system would be a boon for the Brunswick Police Department, Bergquist said, which has been chronically understaffed for years and is currently dealing with several violent crime investigations.
Bergquist said the proposal was the result of the cumulative 50 years of law enforcement experience between himself, a former captain of the Glynn County Police Department, and Brunswick Police Chief Kevin Jones.
Camera integration doesn't end with city-owned and private cameras, he added. The Brunswick Housing Authority and Glynn County Schools both have substantial camera systems that could also be integrated into the city's network, he said.
At City Commission meeting on Wednesday, Mayor Cosby Johnson asked city residents to cooperate with the government on the project by giving the city "context of how to best place these cameras when we do get them."
In addition to the cameras, Bergquist's proposal states that the city plans to use the money on 50 new streetlights in high-crime areas. Getting the lights installed comes with no up-front cost and is handled by Georgia Power. The utility will charge $70 a month for each light for an annual cost of $42,000.
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