By Daisy Mills
DULUTH, Ga. | Businesses can help make the Sugarloaf Community Improvement District safer by enrolling in Gwinnett County’s new community camera sharing program! You can make a big difference through this collective community effort.
There are two ways you can participate to improve safety for our community:
- Register cameras on your property to enable Gwinnett Police to locate cameras and/or potentially contact you faster in the event of an incident.
- Integrate your cameras with Gwinnett Safe Communities through a mutual agreement between you and the Gwinnett Police. Your camera will only be accessed during a criminal incident or emergency at or near your camera’s location.
Across the Metro Atlanta area, camera owners are helping first responders respond to emergency situations more effectively through a new technology. Camera owners can provide authorized law enforcement the locations of cameras on their properties (known as “registering” a camera) and allow them to view live footage in the event of an emergency. The more cameras that are registered in Gwinnett aids law enforcement in “connecting the dots” to recover stolen property, help solve other crimes, and even locate missing persons. This technology was developed in Gwinnett County by Fusus, which is a part of the company Axon. That firm also produces police body worn cameras and tasers.
To be even more proactive, the additional option of integrating your camera with the Fusus technology gives authorized law enforcement personnel access to your camera, ONLY if determined necessary for public safety or in the event of an emergency. This completely voluntary program mutually benefits first responders in Gwinnett County and you by being proactive and providing more real-time information about a potentially dangerous situation.
Both options are completely voluntary, and camera owners can enroll and withdraw from the program at any time. Only authorized law enforcement personnel are able to view footage in either case, and all actions with footage leave a detailed audit trail for accountability.
Using the Fusus technology, registered and integrated cameras can be utilized along with the existing Flock Safety Cameras that Sugarloaf CID and Gwinnett Police use. The Flock Safety Cameras read license plates and communicate with law enforcement databases to flag potentially related criminal activity, and they have been a huge success.
In 2023, the Flock Safety Cameras located in the Central Precinct, which were purchased and installed by Sugarloaf CID and Gwinnett Place CID, helped the Gwinnett Police to recover 32 stolen vehicles (including 17 related arrests) and locate 51 wanted persons. These cameras are a deterrent for criminals attempting vehicle-based crimes, because they are more likely to get caught.
Visit the Safe Communities website for more information! Here are some FAQs to check out. You can also request the Gwinnett Police come to your property to evaluate the best place for potential cameras and discuss your connectivity options with the Fusus technology.
- Have a comment? Click here to send an email.
