Meridian City Council members learned how technology is being used to catch crooks in Mississippi’s capitol city as officers with Jackson Police Department on Thursday shared their success with the Fusus camera system.

The Fusus system is a cloud-based system that allows law enforcement to build networks of cameras throughout an area and use the data collected to prevent, investigate and prosecute criminal activity.

JPD Assistant Chief Vincent Grizzell said the system has several features that have benefitted his department and will likely benefit Meridian Police Department as well. The first feature, he said, is the ability to access the system from anywhere.

“Anything that goes on, I can dispatch from right here,” he said.

The second feature, Grizzell said, is the ability to add other cameras to the network. JPD’s Fusus network started by using grant funds to purchase a few cameras for an area in south Jackson that was seeing a lot of burglaries, he said. Once the system was up and running and police began to arrest the burglars, criminals migrated up to the Belhaven area.

In Belhaven, Grizzell said, business owners installed their own cameras and linked them with JPD’s network, which forced criminals to find other areas to target. The cycle repeated itself over and over, and now JPD’s network incorporates more than 1,000 cameras keeping watch over the city.

Tarrien Williams, senior account manager for Pileum Corporation, a technology consultant firm based in Jackson, said the benefit of a system like Fusus is that the city doesn’t have to front the money for a large camera network. Instead, businesses, neighborhoods and individuals can purchase Fusus cores, which will allow them to connect their own cameras to MPD’s network.

Two types of Fusus cores are available, Williams said, with a large core being able to connect up to 24 cameras, which costs $600, and a smaller mini core that can connect up to four cameras offered at $250. Businesses and residents would also be able to choose which cameras they shared with MPD’s network, he said, and could allow access to exterior cameras while keeping interior feeds private.

Another video feature, Grizzell said, is the ability to tap into the video functions of modern smartphones to provide police with additional information. For example, he said, in a domestic violence situation where a child is calling, officers can send the child a link that, when clicked on, streams video from the phone directly to responding officers.

“It’s going to come to your phone,” he said. “You touch it, and it’s going to be live.”

Gathering the footage, however, is only half of the equation. The other half, Grizzell said, is putting it to use.

An initial proposal would put the Fusus platform onto the laptop computers installed in each Meridian Police Department patrol vehicle, which would allow officers to view the camera feeds when needed. When a call comes in, Grizzell said, officers will be able to look at nearby video feeds to get a better understanding of the situation before they arrive.

MPD Assistant Chief Patrick Gale said having that video available en route to a call will definitely impact how officers respond. The video feeds could provide information on potential weapons, descriptions and directions of travel of potential suspects, help finding potential witnesses and more.

Officers would also have the ability to look through recent past footage if needed for additional help in investigations. Williams said the cores themselves store video for around 30 days, giving officers some time to find and save the needed clips. Any saved video is uploaded to the cloud where it remains until deleted, he said.

The Fusus system will also give officers an edge in tracking down suspects as it comes with license plate reading capabilities. Officers can use the system to search for a particular tag across the network of cameras or set an alert to be notified when the system picks that plate up. The system is also capable of gunshot detection, pulling in live drone footage and more.

Fusus isn’t cutting edge technology, Williams said, and it has been in use around the country for a number of years in large metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. The big change, he said, is that the cost has now fallen enough where smaller municipalities such as Meridian can afford to buy it.

Tuesday’s presentation comes after Councilman Dwayne Davis paid a visit to JPD’s Real Time Crime Center to see how the department uses cameras and technology to help fight crime. The visit was arranged as part of a request from Meridian Police Department for a $1.4 million camera system, including a monitoring room and six new positions for employees to monitor the cameras around the clock.

Should the city go with the Fusus system instead, no new positions would be needed, Williams said.

An estimate of what the Fusus system would cost to implement in Meridian is not yet known. Williams said he will need some data from MPD about the current number of cameras and locations to put together a proposal for the council to review. Gale said he would make sure Williams got the information he needed.

It is also not yet clear if the city’s current camera network would work with the Fusus system or if new cameras would be needed. The city currently has cameras through a five-year lease agreement with Mississippi Power, and has an additional two years to go before the lease ends. City Attorney Will Simmons said some research and exploration will be needed to understand what the city can and cannot do to those cameras.