Tulsa police seek business partnerships to enhance crime response with live camera feeds

TULSA, OKLA. (KTUL) — Tulsa Police Department’s Real-Time Information Center, reaching out to businesses about providing the police department access to their security footage.

Captain Johnston with the Tulsa Police Department says integrating security cameras will not only make footage accessible from the Real-Time Information Center but also to police officers on patrol.

“So as they’re responding, if we’re not able to assist them, they can actually look and see what’s happening and really get a clear picture of what’s occurring, the suspects that are involved, and if they leave before we can get there, we know which way they left,” said Captain Jacob Johnston, the Real-Time Information Center Commander for Tulsa Police Department.

Business owners now have the option to integrate their security cameras, giving the Tulsa Police Department complete access.

Tulsa Police Department says this program can help businesses better provide information to police, and can streamline police officers’ response to an incident and reduce the risk to the community.

“I like that they’re coming up with different ideas to try to help with the crime problem, this is another different idea and I’m sure they probably thought some things through about it, it’s just that I’d personally like to know more about some of the details,” said William Franklin, the Owner of Decopolis, a shop and museum in Tulsa that is no stranger to experiencing property crime.

“We’ve had some instances where people had broken into windows in some of the other buildings nearby and stuff like that and somebody stole one of our dinosaurs,” said Franklin.

The dino heist perpetrator was caught in the act by security cameras, identified by police, and then arrested in January 2022.

Now Franklin is building a new shop location and on his to-do list, installing security cameras, but he isn’t sure yet if he would integrate them.

“I’d just want to know some more of the specifics about what’s going on with that because I know right now we were working on how are we going to get the cameras around our place and have them all linked up to each other and I hear there’s a fee for the police to link it up with the system,” said Franklin.

According to TPD’s page on this program, to integrate their cameras, businesses are charged a one-time installation fee of five hundred dollars, and then an annual integration subscription cost of three hundred dollars to integrate up to 8 cameras.

The subscription cost climbs as you go above eight cameras.

“For me, it’s a matter of showing businesses what this is capable of doing, how we’re able to help them better provide information to the officers who are going to be responding and really building that momentum within the community,” said Johnston.

Johnston clarified that these fees do not go to Tulsa Police Department, they go to Flock Safety, the vendor providing the service.

He says the expense is for the vendor to integrate and maintain a connection.

Katy Casillas-Gray is the owner of the Painted Moth, an artisan shop in Tulsa, and her biggest concern isn’t the cost.

“I’m not sure that I like the part of live-streaming the feed at just any time when they want to access the camera,” said Casillas-Gray.

Tulsa Police says this program is not for cameras that show private offices in businesses, only cameras showing public space within and outside the building. He says businesses can choose which cameras they integrate.

You can learn more about this program on TPD’s Tulsa Community Connect page.

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