Barrington will upgrade squad car cameras

The cameras on Barrington's police cars will be getting an HD upgrade that will make it easier for police to use the captured footage.

The village board approved a $70,802 plan to replace the old cameras, which were installed in 2007 and reaching the end of their usable lifetime, with new ones provided by L3 Mobile Vision Inc.

The plan calls for 10 new cameras for Barrington's patrol cars, one for investigations and one in reserve.

Chief Dave Dorn said not only will the cameras capture higher quality video, but the new system also will make uploading the footage to the computers and burning it to DVDs for court purposes faster.

"It will make it a lot more efficient for us from start to finish," Dorn said.

"It will cut down on a lot of time for us."

Board member Jim Daluga praised the new system as a step up in tech.

"I think it's going to be very helpful," Daluga said.

Board member Jason Lohmeyer said he likes that the new system is compatible with future upgrades that the village might pursue, like body cameras.

Dorn said the officials will call L3 on Tuesday to set up an installation date for the new equipment.