ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Alexandria City Council will consider a proposal to reallocate money to help fund a police program aimed at improving public safety and deterring crime.
The agenda item for this Wednesday’s meeting would use $20,000 from a reserves account to support creating the Alexandria Real-Time Information Center (ARTIC). Part of the initiative would include the “establishment of a doorbell camera registry, phased implementation of security cameras (license plate readers) and future integration with privately owned security camera systems.”
By adding to the current 16 readers in the city, Captain Jason North said the department can continue locating stolen vehicles, missing people, and suspects.
In one case, investigators tracked down a prison escapee from Wisconsin in Alexandria because of the license plate reader provided by FlockSafety.
North said this would also mean for the first time, the city would have a registry for private surveillance cameras, which he stressed would be voluntary. That means police wouldn’t tap into the camera’s access.
“Homeowners can choose to share with the police department that they have a doorbell camera, and it will allow us to communicate with the homeowner just virtually through an email if there's an incident like a critical event or a missing person that may have been captured on that doorbell camera,” North told WUSA9.
The $20,000 was originally meant to incentivize business and homeowners who invest in private security cameras. However, staff concluded that there are legal hurdles to establishing an incentivize-based security camera program for private owners, according to a memo from the city.
“Furthermore, it has come to light that a popular security camera vendor has altered its business model in a way that significantly undermines the intended program objectives,” the memo read.
North said creating ARTIC would primarily focus on assisting officers responding to scenes. While they’re currently looking into if and how many staff members would support the center, North added that it’s meant to provide much needed information in real-time.
“We do a great job documenting all these previous encounters, but we don't always do a great job to share that with our officers in real time and sometimes, there's really important information that they may need to know,” he added. “Are there mental health concerns? Are there officer safety concerns? Perhaps there's info to help us better triage that incident when we need to send more or fewer officers or better divert to different resources in the city.”
The city council will hold the budget public hearing at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. The regular meeting will begin following the public hearing.