Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office gathers irrefutable evidence with Avigilon HD Surveillance System

 “We’ve got to get something better than this.”

That was the opinion of Sheriff John Whetsel , of the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma City, OK, as he challenged his Captain of Technology, David Baisden, to find a better video surveillance system to cover the “day rooms” (the common areas outside of the cells) in the detention facility.

As a past president of the International Chiefs of Police, and a driving force behind the department’s critically acclaimed “Mobile Data Project,” which created an interoperable mobile data center now being used by 50 other police agencies, piggybacking on its one server, Sheriff Whetsel knew what he was talking about. And he had no doubt that the aging video surveillance system in the detention facility -- the largest in Oklahoma, with 2700 inmates -- needed to be replaced.

Among its many shortcomings, the system featured only one pan-tilt, analog surveillance camera for each cell pod in the facility, and while these cameras were able to move side-to-side, and zoom in, once they zoomed in, they lost the ability to capture the whole picture and never seemed to be in the right place at the right time. As a result, when prisoners were assembled in the day room, altercations would frequently break out when prisoners were out of view of the pan-tilt camera, and the violence would continue until they were back in view of the single camera.

Another problem with the aging system was that when the cameras zoomed in, the quality of the image deteriorated. Captain Baisden told GSN that in the six or eight years that the former surveillance system was in place, the Sheriff’s Office never took one video over to the district attorney’s office as evidence.

As his first step in the effort to upgrade the system, Captain Baisden contacted the Northeastern Office of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) in Rome, NY, which specializes in video surveillance.  As he recalls it, an NLECTC representative, Clifford Hopkins, spent four days in the correctional center studying the existing system, taking measurements and making recommendations as to what replacements of hardware and software were needed. Hopkins, a specialist in video, determined that four cameras placed on opposite sides of the day room, criss-crossing each other with the right lenses, would cover the entire day room floor.

The next step was identifying a camera software platform that would meet the needs of the project. Baisden and Hopkins conducted a Google search utilizing the key words “Megapixel Surveillance Camera,” and looked at several systems. After their search, Baisden found an online demonstration of the Avigilon Surveillance System, which Sheriff Whetsel, Undersheriff P.D. Taylor and Detention Facility Major Jack Herron viewed at Baisden’s request.

Baisden then contacted Bryan Schmode, Central U.S. Director of Sales for Avigilon and requested a demonstration. But he explained that the hardware and software would be installed by Oklahoma County Sheriff’s technicians; not by an integrator. Schmode contacted Joshua Herron the president of Digi Surveillance Systems, an integrator from Pryor, OK, who agreed to assist with the demonstration.

Once it was decided that Avigilon’s system would replace the legacy analog PTZ system, a public competitive bid was sent out, seeking hardware and software only. Digi Surveillance System was the successful bidder, and the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office purchased 138 one and five megapixel cameras. Other components purchased were Dell servers, switches and workstations; the Pivot3 storage solution and Samsung 40” televisions.

One of the most important reason for the team’s decision, said Baisden, was that “one camera can be busted into 36 or more views as you digitally zoom in to see the whole picture. You can’t do that with any other system,” he added.

The captain recalled proudly that with the assistance of  Deputy Paul Whisman, who directed the installation, and Van Schallenberger, who dealt with the network infrastructure, he was able to complete the entire installation in record time. “We started in mid-November and turned it over to them on December 31^{st --} totally wired with fibers from every switch going down to the server room in the basement.”

According to Deputy Whisman, the Avigilon Control Center NVMS  is extremely intuitive and user-friendly, making its installation simple and reducing the time required for training. “The Avigilon HS Surveillance System dramatically reduces the number of steps required to perform certain tasks, such as adding new cameras to the system,” said Deputy Whitman.

Captain Baisden remains very positive about the quality of the video images he is getting from the Avigilon high-definition cameras. In the previous six to eight years, he said, the Sheriff’s Office had been unable to provide any videos that could be used to protect prisoners or prevent fraudulent lawsuits against officers. But, in the first 30 days after the Avigilon installation, the sheriff’s office was able to bring 30 videos to the district attorney’s office, he said.

In one situation, an officer was standing, waiting to process his prisoner, when the prisoner suddenly turned around, with no warning, and head-butted the officer, recalled Baisden. The prisoner couldn’t bring a lawsuit against the officer and the department for supposedly using excessive force or causing his head wound, because the HD Surveillance system in place provided irrefutable evidence that the prisoner’s sudden attack on the officer was completely without provocation.

In another case, Captain Baisden reported that after being brought into the sheriff’s office in a wheelchair, a lady suddenly dropped her head to her shoulder and died. Once again, the videotape of the incident made it clear that there was no malfeasance on the part of the police. Much to the contrary, any viewer of the video would be greatly impressed at how hard everyone present tried to resuscitate the woman and save her life.

“This high-definition megapixel technology is going to save the country millions of dollars a year,” concluded Captain Baisden.