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Ogden • The Ogden Police Department hopes a high-tech infusion will boost its crime-fighting capabilities.
The department hopes to purchase cameras to place strategically throughout the city as well as getting clearance for a remote controlled blimp that would patrol the city from above. Video from those cameras would be transmitted to a control room outfitted with computers and surveillance screens.
Police Chief Jon Greiner, in San Diego at a conference on Tuesday, explained details of the proposed Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) to City Council via Skype.
"This is about data management and bringing it all together in one place with cyber-technology," Greiner told council members during Tuesday's work session, "to solve crimes within hours" — rather than days or months.
An area within the city's public safety building is currently being modified to serve as an emergency operations center, the precursor to the $2 million RTCC that Greiner is patterning after a similar facility in Memphis, Tenn. The first such center opened in New York City in 2005.
Ogden's RTCC will allow quick access to key databases that can help officers find potential suspects.
Greiner is currently working with the Federal Aviation Administration to get clearance for the city's new dirigible — equipped with a high-powered camera and live feed to the RTCC — to glide about 400 feet above the city.
Greiner is seeking $175,000 in capital improvement funding to purchase 30 to 40 cameras that would feed information to the RTCC from parks, construction sites, parking terraces, certain streets and even abandoned buildings.
One such device could rotate, tilt, zoom and also read license plates. That $5,000 gadget would nest at Fort Buenaventura, Greiner said.
Another camera could keep an eye on hotel construction in Ogden's downtown Junction, to stop thieves from stripping materials from the site.
"We're handling 300 calls a day and are doing the best we can to keep people safe," Greiner said, adding that these tools would help.
The council will vote on the city's 2012 budget next Tuesday. A $25 fee for sex offender registration is also on the table, which would bring an estimated $4,000 each year into the general fund, Greiner said.
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