McHenry Times

The Village Board of Huntley met on April 13 where they heard from the police department about a pair of requests for equipment and ultimately approved them.

Police Chief Robert Porter said the requests were to help with their investigative abilities and being transparent with the courts, as well as the public. The request was $187,150 for Flock Cameras and license plate readers that have a 48-month contract. Also requested was $105,587 for body cameras, car cameras and storage space.

“This was referred to the committee and they provided some very good information,” Chief Porter said.

A committee was created by the police department to decide on technological purchases and what businesses to get them from. The Flock license plate readers were chosen because they have become popular across the state, and have been useful with minimal cost and efft. They take information about cars, and consider their make, color, plate, stickers and any other information involved. They are not used for traffic enforcement or gathering information about people, he said.

Porter explained that the cameras alert police when they see a car matching information from a hot list or they are suspected of being involved in crimes like thefts, shootings, assaults, accidents or other incidents. There were 17 cameras approved by the board to be placed around the village.

The second request approved was the purchase of cameras and equipment from Axon involving body cameras. This puts Huntley Police into compliance with the state’s requirement to have officers wearing them by January 1, 2025, according to Deputy Chief Williams.

“What that requires is that all municipalities and counties that have 50,000 people or less must implement a body camera system,” said Deputy Chief Williams.

She said when this came to fruition they decided to come up with a system to have a “technology-safe and friendly environment.” They gathered information from demonstrations and visited other departments to decide on Axon.

The cameras are integrated body-worn cameras, car cameras and cloud-based storage solutions allowing for quick answers to Freedom of Information Act questions, presenting better evidence to the courts and also integrating with online data supplied by victims. 

“This will be a huge step for a transition for us to bring us out of an age where we struggle to burn videos and such on our older equipment to send evidence that’s needed to state’s attorneys,” Williams said.

The village pays lesser yearly amounts after this year, which is about $95,6000 through 2027 when the contract is up. Chief Porter stressed the importance they had officers involved with the process, echoing the sentiments of Deputy Chief Williams.

“As Deputy Chief Amy Williams had stated, we thought it was very important to get input from all members of our department,” Chief Porter said to the board. “So the officers have been involved. I've actually been piloting them. They've been wearing them. We've done demos with other agencies. So we've got a very good grasp on this system and we've talked to a lot of other agencies that have gone to very similar systems on their very comfortable with.”