Wireless video surveillance system has started as a
wireless video surveillance system to secure Easton, Pennsylvania’s West Ward
school and parks.
It is now growing into a city- and county-wide effort to
give local, neighboring and county police an edge in deterring and solving
crimes.
Two years ago, the Easton Police Department (EPD)
obtained a Department of Justice Secure Our Schools” federal grant matched by
city funds to improve security around an elementary school, just a block away
from the site of a 2007 gang-related triple homicide in the city’s West Ward.
To do so, the EPD commissioned Let’s Think Wireless to deploy a Firetide-based
wireless video surveillance network.
The EPD raised additional funds from the city and has now
installed 25 Bosch pan-tilt-zoom cameras and 31 Firetide infrastructure mesh
nodes covering the Northampton corridor that stretches from the West Ward
School to city hall and the police station, including the Riverfront and
Amphitheater areas.
The Easton network has also been integrated with
neighboring Wilson Borough’s Firetide-based wireless video surveillance system of 15 cameras on 16 mesh nodes, giving both city police
departments viewing access.
There are three monitoring stations, two of which are in
police headquarters where volunteers and police officers may be assigned to
monitor special events or to view, in advance of officers arriving on the
scene, sites of criminal activities or other incidents.
The video, stored for 30 days, may also be used for
evidence. The third station is at the West Ward School where school district
police and volunteers view the cameras at random or use them to monitor large
crowds at sporting or other special events. In the short time since the
deployment, burglaries have been solved, school vandals apprehended, stolen
cars found, and car thieves identified.
We have done a lot of planning together with the school
district, Wilson Borough, the Northampton County and Lafayette College to pool
our collective resources to implement the best possible solution that will meet
all of our needs,” said Easton Police Chief Larry Palmer, who has championed
the wireless video surveillance system from the start.
We realized early on that it is much more cost-effective
and mutually beneficial for us to own, operate and share our wireless video
surveillance systems and expand them according to the security needs of our
communities,” Palmer added.
The 25-camera Easton network has been up and running for
six months. Now, the EPD is working with local Lafayette College to raise funds
and expand the network onto the campus. The EPD also plans to integrate the
city’s wireless video surveillance network with the Northampton County
Sheriff’s fiber network used by the 911 center located in the county courthouse
in Easton, the county seat.
We chose the Firetide-based wireless infrastructure with
the goal of building a larger, county-wide video surveillance system. The
Firetide wireless network’s frequency agility and channel bonding enables the
highest performance for multiple streams of video, and its advanced management
features allow it to interoperate well with other wired video systems,” said
Mickey Branson, senior director of national sales, Let’s Think Wireless.
Easton illustrates the scalability and performance of
our wireless mesh network and the ease of deployment, expansion and integration
as the video surveillance needs of a community grows,” said Bo Larsson, CEO of
Firetide. The Firetide wireless infrastructure is uniquely capable of meeting
law enforcement’s demanding video surveillance requirements for multiple
purposes, city- and county-wide.”
By TelecomLead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com