MOSCOW, ID – The Latah County Sheriff’s Office has partnered with Utility, a software company that focuses on digital systems for frontline professions, to help advance the work done at the Sheriff’s office.
Through grant funding, the Latah County Sheriff’s Office purchased a digital evidence system that includes new software, body and vehicle cameras.
This new technology will replace the outdated and failing system previously used.
” There’s a lot of things this is going to allow our department to be able to do safer for the deputies and safer for the community,” Latah County Sheriff Richie Skiles said.
Polaris by Utility is a digital evidence management system, now with a 5-year contract with the Latah County Sheriff’s Office.
In the patrol car, deputies will be provided with a dash camera and a dome camera in the prisoner compartment that has audio and video recording.
On the front of the vehicle, there is an automatic license plate reader, a tool that Sheriff Richie Skiles says can help solve important cases.
” An asset for amber alerts for children that have been taken and also for stolen vehicles,” Sheriff Skiles said.
Each of the deputies now have new and improved body cameras. All these cameras have an automatic start system.
” They will automatically come on when the car lights are turned on. If you open your car door to get out of your car your body cam will turn on,” Sheriff Skiles said.
If a deputy falls or is running, sensors on the body cam can alert other deputies for backup.
The new technology allows video to be directly uploaded to the in-car storage system using the car’s encrypted Wi-Fi connection. The footage that is collected from these cameras instantly goes to the cloud.
” This will allow us to do the reports stuff from the car and it will go to the cloud, and we can pull it up from the cloud in the car,” Sheriff Skiles said.
Beforehand deputies would spend a lot of their time waiting for video to download and write reports, now they can do it from their patrol cars spending more time out in the community.
Deputies can look at their camera footage from the past or present and the chain of command can access the camera footage from their deputies. The footage cannot be edited.
Through GPS location data, deputies can see who is on shift and the location where they are at.
All 30-Latah County Sheriff’s Office patrol cars have this new system. As of right now, only three of those vehicles will have the automatic license plate reader, as they are in a testing period.
This new technology will also be helpful in the court system. The Latah County Sheriff’s Office is the first in Northern Idaho with this new digital evidence system.
SOURCE: KLEW News