Lake in the Hills police to get new in-car cameras, bodycams
Lake in the Hills village trustees on Thursday approved spending $102,782 for nine police car video systems and 20 officer body cameras with maintenance warranties for hardware, software and license fees.
The in-car cameras cost $59,112, and the body cameras cost $43,670.
The purchases are a continuation of a three-year transition plan to have Watch Guard/Motorola Solutions in-car cameras replace a previous purchase of Pro-Vision cameras because those have recurring technical issues of losing videos and audio files, officials said.
"We already purchased 20 body cameras last year, and this year we are requesting 20 more to complete the project," Police Chief Mary Frake said. "We started this process quite a while ago.
"The problems (with Pro-Vision) were difficulty in locating the videos once they were uploaded, and then to have some manual intervention to go find the videos. That is something we do not want to do with recordings and transparency. And at the end of the day, that is what our focus is, and that is why we moved to a system that has proven to be working."
The in-squad camera systems are used to collect evidence during traffic stops and service calls, provide training opportunities from situations captured on video, capture additional facts regarding potential complaints against officers, and provide an added level of transparency to the public, village documents show.
The department wanted body cameras that could be integrated with the squad cameras, according to an email from police spokeswoman Ashley Eccles. She also noted department efficiency in using one camera system as opposed to two, as well as the efficiency of having video storage on one system.
The village bought four Pro-Vision in-squad cameras in 2018 and five more in 2019 for a total cost of $35,500. Those cameras started to have problems in 2018, with cameras disconnecting and videos not uploading to the server, Eccles said.
Officials worked with the vendor to address the problems, as all the equipment still was under warranty, she said.
Attempts to reach Pro-Vision via phone and email were not successful.
Pro-Vision replaced the equipment, but problems persisted, so the village bought a different camera system - Watch Guard, now Watch Guard/Motorola Solutions - as recommended by its technology consultant, Advanced Business Network.
Advanced Business Network implemented the Watch Guard/Motorola system in other police departments and has extensive experience with it, village documents show.
All the purchases of the Watch Guard/Motorola products included waiving the competitive bidding process, as recommended by Advanced Business Network. From October 2020 to last March, the village paid Advanced Business Network $43,000, with a majority of the cost coming from issues with the Pro-Vision camera system, documents show.