KENT COUNTY, Mich. — A steady stream of homeowners, schools, businesses and municipalities have enrolled in the Kent County Safety Network, which officially launched last week.
As of Thursday, more than 200 homeowners have signed up for the public safety program, which is designed to help deputies better respond to active threats and assist them in the solving of crime.
For participating homeowners, if a crime happens in their neighborhood, the Kent County Sheriff's Office will be able to send them a link through they can voluntarily upload any relevant security camera footage.
"If something goes wrong in my neighborhood, it may not affect me, it may affect the neighbor across the street, but if the sheriff's office can look at it and figure out who it was and do something about it, then that makes everybody else around here safer," said John Lastocy, a Plainfield Township resident and new participant in the Kent Safety Network.
"If the neighbor's house gets broken into, if somebody's missing, if somebody steals one of my grandkids, I would want somebody to have cameras," Lastocy said.
As it relates to schools, businesses and municipalities, those that have chosen to participate in the program have given the sheriff's office, in the form of a memorandum of understanding, a certain set of permissions to view a live feed of their surveillance footage.
In the event of an active incident, these feeds can be accessed at the county's Realtime Intelligence Center and viewed in combination with the dash camera, body camera and drone feeds from deputies on the scene.
Notably, if investigators want to review the footage captured on these feeds for the purposes of solving a crime that has already happened, the "appropriate legal framework" will need to be followed.
"This system operates in real-time access," Kent County Undersheriff Bryan Muir said in a February press conference about the Kent Safety Network. "When video beyond that short-term access is needed, the appropriate legal framework, including search warrants, when required, will be obtained."
Kent
Rep. Scholten announces $750K for security camera program in Kent County
As of Thursday, a total of 2,248 cameras have been integrated into the network. The majority of these, according to the sheriff's office, come from 14 of the 20 public school districts in the county that have already joined or are in the process of joining the network.
"Without hesitation, we said, ‘Sign us up,'" said Scott Vogel, one of the owners of Nothing Bundt Cakes West Michigan.
Vogel says, after nine years in business, his security cameras have occasionally come in handy. He's seen the county's Realtime Intelligence Center for himself and hopes to help assist in the responding to and solving of crime.
"If there's just a little thing that I can do just by giving a little access to my security cameras to allow [deputies] to do their job better and keep them a little bit safer so they can go home to their families. I mean, why wouldn't you?"
