Griffin: This past Wednesday we found out that our in house interview room video and audio system has quit. Let me rephrase that, hadn't quit, malfunctioned. Couple of months ago we had the same issue, it's all server based, it was installed by the previous IT group using pieced together equipment. About 2 months ago we had an issue where we were doing interviews and it wasn't recording at all. We put into place to make sure it's recording before we start doing inhouse interviews. Well,Katie checked and it was recording and we started some interviews and we had some on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 3 felony cases that the video was recording but we have no audio. There's 3 felony cases there becasue of our faulty equipment, from a previous install, this is something we've got to get fixed. We came to ya'll and requested $5500 to fix it, in our budget and we found a new system, a $5500 system was going to be for Watchguard. We started looking at Watchguard and was gonna install it, but it has a really bad review, it uses a mobile system that they actually installed in house and you have to convert it from 120 to 12 and their security system is not that great, so I voted against, me and Eddie talked about it, we voted against the Watchguard system. We have found another system that's better, more secure, it's server based, in house and it's about $8600
Brian: I've got 8494
Griffin: We have to have it yesterday, we don't know from day to day when we're going to need it to interview suspects, and our system is unreliable and there's a possibility we could lose felony cases because of our interviews not being recorded. It's something we need to install ASAP.
Chambers: More than likely going to take it out of 570.
Brian: If you recall back to our budget time, I pulled a .. the 5500 would come out of last year's money. That's why we took it off this year's budget. we don't have that 55. What we do have as 570 are the two taser payments and the AC unit. So this would be basically unidentified money. .. iF we can't gather it from other line items this would definitely have to come from contingency.
Eddie: Some of the equipment that's in that room can be redeployed to .. 2 cameras basically a year old, so we can redeploy those to the jail or whatever. Jail camera's going to have to be replaced at some point so that offsets that a little bit.
Chambers: I guess you didn't lose, I was under the impression it just wasn't recording audio.
Griffin: Well, the interviews are not any good if the audio's not recording because in all of them they confessed to the issue and so it's not good
Eddie: The system that's in there was never really designed for an interview room and the problem is there's no indicators to know if it's working or not. One of those deals that until the interview is over and you go back and look at it, it's kind of a 50/50 shot about whether we're good or not. This new system is designed specifically for interview rooms, has all the bells and whistles that they can actually monitor it during the interview and hear the audio and see the indicator lights
Griffin: It has an indicator light in the room that tells you when it's recording.
Busch: This equipment available now?
Eddie: Yes.
Griffin: As long as it's available, they can ship it to us and Eddie can install and take about 10 minutes to teach us how to use it
Johnson: Why don't we take the money out of 570
Griffin: That's fine as long as it's understood that we're already having issues with AC units, replacing them as we have problems. .. Hopefully we can get through the year with what we've got but if not we may have to come back here to revisit this. .. Had a freezer crack out on us too
Johnson: All that equipment is the same age.
Griffin: Wouldn't be doing this if not absolultely necessary. Continue with misdemeanor cases in district court, absolutely ncessary.
Johnson: How long will it take to get it up and running, Eddie?
Eddie: They're going to try to do it within 4 weeks.
Johnson: What do you do in the meantime?
Griffin: We'll have to call somebody in that has a body cam because we don't have body cams inside the SO and we won't have any spares so we'll either call in people with body cam or the videos still work, we can bring in little tape recorders that sit on the desk. The courts don't like that because you have two different systems that are not married together, too much ability to tamper with one or the other. We'll survive until we get the system up and running... YOu can't use a personal cell phone because of security issues but we've got county cell phones that we could use.. we can set it on the desk and make it work until we get the system installed. .. We called in an officer off the street the other day and used his body cam so we'll make it work for the 4 weeks we need it.
Eddie: We spent about a week talking to vendors, Watchguard, looked at reviews, this was an afterthought to them, not designed for it. In car system amazing for incase but not inhouse.
(James working with Eddie)
