Utah district gives county sheriff access to real-time security video

The Davis district has agreed to give the Davis County Sheriff's Office the ability to view a livestream of security video from any of its 90-plus schools.

The Davis (Utah) School District has reached an agreement with the Davis County Sheriff's Office that will enable security video from its 90-plus schools to be streamed live to law enforcement during a crisis.

KUTV-TV reports that the district will spend about $3 million in the next 15 months to upgrade all of its 6,000 security cameras from analog to digital, which makes streaming possible.

“Anything we can do to make our school safer, we’re going to do it,” says district spokesperson Chris Williams.

County Sheriff Kelly Sparks says that if a school is faced with an active attacker scenario, the feeds could make a tremendous difference locating the suspect and any potential victims.

The system will enable law enforcement to call up a video feed in a laptop outside a school site or in large monitors at the sheriff's operations center in Farmington.

“We could literally be the eyes and ears from inside the school to those officers that are entering the school,” Sparks says.

Sparks says the likelihood of an attacker on a Davis County campus remains small, but he wants to have every tool available at his disposal in the event of a disaster.

“The more prepared we are to respond to those kinds of situations and to prevent those kinds of situations, the more comfort that should bring us,” he says.

About the Author

Mike Kennedy

Senior Editor

Mike Kennedy has been writing about education for American School & University since 1999. He also has reported on schools and other topics for The Chicago Tribune, The Kansas City Star, The Kansas City Times and City News Bureau of Chicago. He is a graduate of Michigan State University.

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