Kane County Reporter

At its April 13 meeting, the Huntley Village Board was presented with two requests from its police department for equipment to help investigations, and improve transparency with the courts and the public. 

Police Chief Robert Porter sought $187,150 for Flock Cameras and license plate readers, which will cover a contract term of 48 months. Porter also asked for $105,587 to Axon for body cameras, car cameras, and storage space.

The board was told the police department created a committee to make decisions on technological purchases and which businesses they would purchase them from. The Flock license plate readers cameras were chosen as they are growing in popularity in the state and have been shown to be very useful with minimal cost and effort. The cameras take in information about vehicles that drive past a site, recording their make, color, license plate, stickers, and other information. 

These cameras are not used for any sort of traffic enforcement or information gathering on individuals. Rather they send alerts to the police department when it sees a car matching the information from an active hot list. These are cars that are known or suspected to be involved in recent thefts, shootings, assaults, accidents, or other incidents. The council approved the 17 cameras to place around the village to help police monitor for active suspects.

The purchase of cameras and other equipment from Axon would supply officer-worn body cameras for all the department's officers as well as storage for the footage. This would have the Huntley Police Department fall into compliance with the Illinois state requirement to have all officers wearing body cameras by Jan. 1, 2025. 

"As Deputy Chief Amy Williams had stated, we thought it was very important to get input from all members of our department. So the officers have been involved. I've actually been piloting them," Porter told the board. "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 they're very comfortable with."

The board was told Axon provides integrated body-worn cameras, car cameras, and cloud-based storage solutions. This allows for quicker responses to FOIA requests, better evidence presentation to the courts, and integration with other online data supplied by victims. The village will pay decreased yearly amounts after 2023, roughly $95,600 through 2027, when the contract, which includes full maintenance service, is up. The council also approved this contract.