Officials tout fiber as public safety tool

By Shelley Smith

ssmith@salisburypost.com

When you think about public safety, things like law enforcement officers, EMS personnel and firefighters usually come to mind. But what about the city of Salisbury and its Fiber to the Home project?

In December, Rory Collins, deputy chief with the Salisbury Police Department, spoke to a group of N.C. lawmakers about how fiber optic cable would help the police department with public safety. Collins has studied the benefits of the project since officials from city of Salisbury formed by the idea.

Not only will fiber help with the safety of residents, but also with officers.

Salisbury Police officers currently have cameras and laptops in each of their vehicles. But not every street in Salisbury receives a wireless signal.

Collins said that the wireless access was a huge safety concern.

"When we are on a vehicle stop, and the suspect is wanted for a serious crime, we can look it up on our computer," he said, noting that city and state governments send out mass alerts to police departments for wanted people, and they are updated daily and hourly.

"A person who has been involved in a serious crime is much more likely to be violent, and fiber will ensure that they (officers) proceed with extra caution when approaching that vehicle or person," he said. "There are too many dead spots in the city where the reception with the computers is weak.

"Fiber is vital to the safety of every officer."

Collins said cameras in downtown areas of Salisbury are already in the police department's strategic plan, and fiber optic cable will allow for a live feed to be transmitted back to the communications department.

"The cameras will help us monitor our high-crime areas, help us to solve crime and serve as a deterrent to crime," Collins said. "The fiber will also cause the video to be very clear, which will hold up in court a lot better."

Salisbury City Manager David Treme said downtown cameras will be located around parking lots where most crime occurs.

"We want Salisbury to be as safe as possible," Treme said. Collins and Treme both said cameras could be used in high-crime neighborhoods, if needed.

The cameras could be used "if we had a neighborhood group that was maybe having issues with crime 'hot spot,' and the cameras would have to be approved by that neighborhood," Treme said. "But that's not our purpose with fiber." Len Clark, marketing director for Fiber to the Home, said the installation of downtown and neighborhood cameras was complicated.

"It would be a very slow and steady progress to put cameras in any particular area," Clark said. "We are extremely sensitive to citizens' civil rights."

Fiber will also allow law enforcement a chance to solve crime more quickly through the help of the public, by publishing alerts across the television and the Internet."If we need the urgent help of citizens, we will be able to run emergency broadcasts or scroll information at the bottom of each television station, notifying citizens of Amber or Silver alerts, or scrolling information if we need assistance looking for suspects," Collins said.

Clark said it will also help with traffic during accidents.

"Real-time traffic camera monitoring may assist in traffic flow at times of I-85 closures or other traffic flow problems," Clark said.

Fiber can help with home and business security.

"A homeowner could observe four or five cameras with live streaming video from their office, instead of a single camera with a still every 10 seconds," he said. "They could have as many cameras as they wanted because of fiber capabilities."

Collins said that in the future, if the budget allowed, police officers could have cameras on the top of their vehicles that allow dispatchers to monitor and move the cameras around.

"If an officer isn't answering their radio, the dispatcher could move the camera around, look for the officer, and ensure that they are safe and do not need additional assistance," Collins said.

"The fiber will help us protect and serve the community by having quality reception, and will enable us to do things we've never done before," he said.

The Salisbury Fire Department has mentioned using fiber to assist with firefighter safety.

"They are potentially looking at helmet cams," Doug Paris said, assistant to the city manager. "Those who are sitting outside (the structure) will be able to see what's going on inside."

Installation of fiber optic cables is expected to be complete by the end of May, and officials anticipate having the entire system up and running before the end of summer.

Public safety is only the beginning of what fiber will offer Salisbury and Rowan County.

"The idea is for us to build a highway and for other people to run with it," Clark said. "It's an open network for anyone. We'll see a tremendous amount of ideas and development by having this network."