The Little Rock Police Department wants to access your Ring doorbell camera.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. announced a new program Monday that allows private residences and businesses to register security cameras with the LRPD as part of ‘Eyes on the Rock,’ an initiative aimed at reducing crime in the metro area.
“We have varying degrees of cameras all across the city, known and unknown,” Scott said. “Today, that represents about 3,200 cameras.”
“We want to increase that 3,200 to at least 30,000,” Scott said during Monday’s press conference.
Designed to help the Little Rock real-time crime center, which opened in 2022, residents and businesses can register their cameras with the city.
“It is the time to go from good to great as it relates to the real time crime center,” Scott said.
There are two registration options. Under the first option, only the location of a camera is registered, enabling the police to contact a residence or business to gain access to video footage if a crime has occurred in an area nearby.
“LRPD cannot listen in or view your feed without your permission,” a slideshow at the news conference said. “Your feed, your choice.”
A second registration option allows for full integration of cameras with the LRPD. This option allows police to have direct, real-time access to camera feeds during an emergency. It appears to be focused more on businesses than private residences.
“You can integrate your address as a location where a camera feed can be accessed at any time by LRPD,” another slide said.
Integrating a camera requires purchasing a device from Fusus, a subsidiary of police body camera and arms manufacturer Axon, a government contractor that provides real-time crime center software for “over 70 different cities and counties across more than a dozen states,” according to Reuters.
Residents and businesses can purchase a Fusus device from the same city website where you register a camera. The cost of the devices ranges from $350, plus an annual $150 subscription fee, to $7,200 with a $2,300 annual subscription fee.
The more expensive models, which appear to be aimed at businesses, can handle larger numbers of cameras, have artificial intelligence capabilities to search video footage and have larger storage capacity.
During Monday’s press conference, Scott said that the cameras don’t use facial recognition technology and that there’s “no ‘Big Brother’ issues.”
Residents and businesses that opt in to the program will receive an ‘Eyes on the Rock’ yard sign, Scott said.
LRPD Chief Heath Helton said at the press conference that the integration of public and private cameras for police use is “vital to the world that we live in right now.”
“Think about [the] Uvalde [shooting] and some of these tragic incidents that have happened across our country. If that information was shared real-time to officers, I can tell you the outcome would be 100% different,” Helton said.
“If we have an incident occur, we can send a mass notification out at one time to that particular area that [says] ‘Hey, we’ve had an incident occur. Check your camera. If you see something, let us know,’” Helton said. “It’s kind of like that analogy after 9/11, ‘See something, say something.’ Same thing applies here.”
Investigations showed that failures surrounding the 2022 school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, were not related to the response times of first responders but instead the failure of officers to react. Police were on the scene several minutes after the shooter entered the elementary school but did not stop the carnage for more than an hour. Two teachers and 19 children died in Uvalde, marking one of the worst school shootings in American history.
Mayor Scott said his proposed 1% sales tax initiative, would provide additional funding to the real-time crime center and help the city reach its goal of 30,000 cameras. The Little Rock Board of Directors will vote Tuesday on whether or not to put the sales tax proposal before voters in the November election.