Bonneville County helps keep watchful eye on school district
The Bonneville County Emergency Communications Center has access to 1,300 cameras in Bonneville School District 93, allowing dispatchers to view live feeds of the schools in case of an emergency.
Bonneville County and the school district have been working on the project together for more than a year.
“There was a proposal to use our cameras that exist in the school building for the emergency 911 center. If there was an emergency they can pull up the cameras and assist law enforcement on the ground,” said Gordon Howard, the technology and safe school director for Bonneville School District 93.
The cameras use the city of Ammon’s current fiber system to get the footage from the schools to the Sheriff’s Office. The video feeds also go to the Bonneville County Emergency Communications Center, which then provides a geographic location to the Idaho Falls and Bonneville Dispatch Center.
“Then from dispatch, it goes out to whoever gets the calls,” said Roger Christensen, the Bonneville County commissioner.
The cameras can be pulled up in under a minute and show live surveillance information to the responding deputies.
“If something’s happening in this school, we know how to approach it, where to get to it, which direction to come from, all of those pieces,” said Paul Wilde of the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office.
The cameras are able to be moved around to get a better view of what may be going on. They can also be zoomed in or out quite a bit.
“(It goes) all the way to the back of the parking lot, easily,” said Andrew Bodily, a Bonneville School District 93 technician. “It can pick up license plates.”
The cameras are not only outside of the school, but inside the buildings to keep an eye on things.
The cameras also have a layout of the schools, where deputies and dispatch can oversee a map and click on cameras from there that are available.
This system is for emergency purposes only.
“This is if we have a situation occurring in the school that is related to life (or) safety. (Dispatch) can instantly view that and give us real-time information to responding units,” said Capt. Samuel Hulse, of the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office.
Responders and deputies can prepare for what might be going on at the school, allowing them to be quick and efficient moving through the building.
“It’s just eyes to help us see things,” Howard said.
Those with access to the cameras are school resource officers, the county and dispatch. Video is only pulled up in rare circumstances. Recordings on the cameras can be kept for up to 21 days.
