University of Illinois Campus Police

VMS:  Milestone XProtect Corporate
Using C3 to Increase Presence for Events and Monitor Campus Activities

Force Multiplier

Campus Police at the University of Illnois Urbana-Champaign are responsible for public safety in over 286 buildings housing 17 colleges and instructional units, covering over 1,400 acres and over 53,000 students.  The university is also home to 14 major sporting facilities.  In addition to day to day academics, the University hosts the largest Greek community in the US.  The 55 member campus police mission, of course, is to keep students, faculty, staff and visitors safe throughout their time at the University.

With the sheer size of their mission, it is no surprise that the progressive organization was looking for a way to provide real time, reliable video surveillance to all of their officers and personnel.

“It is important to campus safety for our officers to have a presence during regular school days and evenings, as well as major events on campus,” said Detective Tim Hetrick. “Our goal is to always be in a position to respond to threats to public and individual safety.”

Cameras and Technology

Chief Barbara O’Connor quickly realized that in order to best serve the needs of this large campus that the security system needed to be centralized.  By utilizing Axis Communication cameras and Milestone XProtect Corporate VMS, the campus police are able to manage all cameras in a central location.  Future plans include a gradual three to five year deployment of roughly 4500 cameras.

Once the centralized system began to take shape, Chief O’Connor and Detective Tim Hetrick needed a way to take that video surveillance to mobile devices.  This is when the university added iRa C3 from Lextech Labs to iPod touches that are provided to the officers while on patrol.  Through a donation to the university, the campus police department started using the iRa C3 software at the beginning of this school year.

“Installation of the C3 client was quick and painless,” said Detective Hetrick.  “And it amounts to about 1% of the total investment of video equipment on campus,” added Chief O’Connor.

Broader Partnerships Changing Video Usage

Detective Tim Hetrick displaying C3 on his iPod touch.

“By utilizing this technology, we are seeing broader partnerships with other organizations and public safety officials on campus,” said Chief O’Connor.  “Now organizations like fire safety are considering implementing the iRa C3 technology to allow them to obtain a better view of fires in buildings to assist getting people out safely and quickly.”

Like most universities, each individual department makes the decision on deployment of a surveillance system.  With this new installation within the campus police, other departments are finding the value in easily managing, deploying and viewing their video.  And while departments still have the final decision on the investment, technical specialists like Detective Tim Hetrick assist other departments with equipment and software recommendations.

Unofficial

In 1996, local establishments began a “tradition” of an unsanctioned bar promotion called “Unofficial” which is a mardi-gras type of celebration.  Annually, campus police and University administration work diligently to mitigate risks associated with this series of celebrations.

Detective Hetrick says, “Unofficial has become an annual occurrence focused on high risk use of alcohol students and guests at the U of I and it brings with it, many issues and problems.  Every year we increase the number of officers on the street by huge numbers and it is still difficult to manage the crowds and obtain real-time information.  There are certain areas and buildings that require constant monitoring during this event.

Now, this year, in using iRa C3, we will have better eyes on all areas of campus and will be able to quickly respond to any incidents.  Plus with the video component, we have a better chance at apprehending suspects.”

C3 Fits into Future Tech Plans

Currently, the officers are using iRa C3 to view 20 different cameras in high traffic, high incident areas on campus.  Future plans include a connection to over 200 of the internal and external cameras on campus.

The expectation is that other departments on campus will deploy the software as well.

Message

The most important outcome of the installation of the new cameras, the Milestone system and iRa C3 is to make the University of Illinois campus safer for everyone.  And that the campus police organization can be leaders in the usage of technology to maintain that safe environment.

“We want potential suspects to know to stay away from the University of Illinois,” Chief O’Connor stated, “the campus is secure and our officers quickly react.”

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