The Chicago-area suburb of Elgin is using Motorola Solutions’ real-time intelligence console (RIC) technology to put public and private video surveillance on a single platform that integrates with the computer-aided dispatch mapping software in the 911 center, according to city police officials.

“Like most departments, we’re having issues with making sure we have appropriate staffing,” Elgin Police Chief Jeff Swoboda stated. “One of the ways we looked at creating a force multiplier was through the use of video cameras.”

Elgin has hundreds of city-owned video-surveillance cameras, but it often has not been easy for law enforcement to access the video until the city implemented the RIC solution, according to Jim Bisceglie, a detective/sergeant in the Elgin police department.

“We have now aggregated all of our cameras on one platform,” Bisceglie said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “In the past, where we’ve had to go to a convenience store or go to a water department or public works to pull their camera feeds, we’re aggregating everything in one spot. We’re not only aggregating them all on one program, we’re placing them all on a map. So, it’s not just a data tree of cameras names; they’re actually being populated on a map, so we can visually see where they are. That’s helping us more efficiently and effectively dispatch our resources.”

Swoboda and Bisceglie cited two examples where the city?s video system has been particularly helpful. In one case, video was used to identify a suspect in a fight at a local bar.

More recently, there was a report that someone was in distress in the water by a local dam, but video from the scene revealed that someone had just fallen off of a Jet Ski and was not in danger.