No Bull, no Fluff, No Smudges
When Noah Smith and Keymarion Hall, both 16, were shot and killed in related drive-bys in January and May in South Bunnell, and when there was another unsolved shooting in the interim or an armed robbery, the city’s surveillance camera system was useless. The city had installed it in 2011. It worked for a while. But the city gradually gave up on it for various reasons.
The two homicides and the armed robbery have been solved, with now-ubiquitous private home or business surveillance cameras playing a key role. But Bunnell Police Chief Dave Brannon is looking to reinvent the city’s surveillance camera system, upgrading it, expanding it, and making it accessible to its own law enforcement officers and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, as both a crime deterrent and an after-the-fact investigative tool.
“We have no interest at all in what good people are doing and law abiding folks are doing, we only want to have these resources in place to catch the bad guys,” Brannon said Tuesday evening.
To that end, and with the memory of recent violent crimes in fresh memory, the Bunnell City Commission Monday evening voted to direct City Manager Alvin Jackson to contract with Motorola for an estimated $250,000 plan that would replace seven, existing but non-functional camera locations with a new system, phase in an additional six locations (with two to three cameras at each location), with new poles, electrical work and connectivity, and add 10 license plate readers for $25,000 in the first year, and $30,000 for each additional year, for a five-year cost of $145,000.
If the city sticks only to the first phase–the replacement of cameras at seven existing locations–its five-year cost would be $117,500, including cellular costs but not including the license plate readers.
The city may opt to buy the system, eliminating leasing costs but not maintenance costs. The difference is not yet clear. Jackson will bring that proposal to the commission at a subsequent meeting. Palm Coast, Flagler County and the school board have innumerable surveillance cameras on their properties, including public parks, and Palm Coast has traffic cameras in many places. But Bunnell would be the first local government to train surveillance cameras directly on streets and street corners in a specific part of the city. Bunnell is the city’s highest-crime area.
If there are any concerns about targeting the predominantly Black area of the city, they may be misplaced: the proposal drew unanimous approval from the five-member commission and near-unanimous approval from the public in attendance, including two former city commissioners and a former sheriff’s office sergeant, all three Black, all of whom either grew up in or still live in South Bunnell: it is the community itself that is clamoring for the system as much as city government. A community group is even looking to pay for half the cost of a camera on top of those the city is proposing, if the city pays the other half.
Bonita Robinson, a former city commissioner and a resident of South Bunnell, spoke appreciatively of getting the cameras back up and running. “Since the loss of life of two young men in the Southside community, the residents and families and members and other organizations have come together in an attempt to work on making it a bit safer for our children and our families, just a safe place for our children and families to live and work, play,” Robinson said.
“We spoke with Mr. Jackson earlier in regards to getting a camera put in and due to safety issues,” she continued, referring to City Manager Alvin Jackson, “and right now, safety is a priority due to the growth in the homeless population and the illegal activities that’s in the park near the Carver Center area, we’re proposing to come up with half the price of one camera for that area, and we’re asking the board tonight to help us along with Bunnell PD to make this area safe for all of us. Your police department is doing a tremendous job in the community, and their presence is being noticed, as well as their community policing tactics. This is something we haven’t had in a long time.” Robinson said the Sheriff’s Office, the NAACP, Flagler Surge, St. James Baptist Church, the Carver Foundation and its governing board and others are all in support. She said her organization is raising fund to pay for its share of the camera. The fields and the park outside the center.
Daisy Henry, another former commissioner and current resident of South Bunnell–on East Drain Street, the same street where Carver Gym is located–said since Carver Gym is a joint operation between the county and the school board, those entities could help.
But Henry alone raised privacy issues. “You’ve got families that come out there in that park to help family fun,” the former commissioner said. “And if you monitoring everything that a family do in their park, that, I believe, takes away some of their privacy of the concerned citizen even though health safety and welfare is an issue for the homeless.” She commended the police department for doing a good job monitoring the park.
Calvin Grant, who retired from the Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy after a long career, and grew up in what he described as “the area of concern,” noted Henry’s reference to families and privacy. “The cameras is not being requested to monitor what a family is doing. When you say cameras, people get a little gun shy. The cameras is to monitor criminal activity, and if the homeless population is conducting or being a part of criminal activity, because every time the news comes out, the landmark is Carver Gym. Beautiful things are happening at Carver Gym, so if I had a family reunion, I wouldn’t mind at all if my family was being monitored. If anybody at a family reunion is conducting criminal activity, they shouldn’t be having a family reunion right at a parks and recreation Center. So it’s not the concern of monitoring.”
Grant may have been was missing Henry’s point, however, the concern with 24-hour, blanket monitoring being that it potentially reverses the equation, making everyone guilty until proven innocent, it can be discriminatory and abused–the commission did not discuss what policies or procedures would be in place to ensure against abuse, who would have access, under what circumstances–and the evidence that it reduces violent crime is contradictory (with some studies concluding it does not, some concluding that cameras have a “modest” crime-reduction effect, and some, while acknowledging contradictions, saying cameras can work, but in association with other strategies: cameras alone aren’t the solution. For example, London has more than 600,000 surveillance cameras blanketing the city–and police there are entering into facial-recognition technology– Brannon, who recently retired as a commander from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office after a long career there, said “policy and procedure would be established by the chief of police in directing the police officers in how to use the system.”
“We’re not targeting that area,” Branon said of South Bunnell. “We are providing the means of having video footage should we have another homicide,” like the two earlier this year, he said, “or another significant crime that occurs” to help investigators identify suspects. South Bunnell, he said, “is where we’ve experienced significant violent crime, and some of these investigations, we don’t always have eyewitness testimony. Some of the testimony we get is not always accurate.” Cameras would help “immensely” in providing a layer of objective evidence.
Bunnell IT Director Don Wines briefed the commission on the proposal (the administration was recommending Motorola, after receiving several proposals). Wines was barely done when Commissioner John Rogers, without a single question from the commission, hurried in a motion to go with Motorola.
“I did my research on it, it’s been a long time coming,” Rogers said in an interview afterward. He recalled the last time the city used its cameras in a high-profile case, if not quite in a violent crime or even as a key tool in its investigation: it was when a west Flagler resident who frequently committed minor infractions rode through the city on horseback, with several Bunnell cops setting chase. Rogers said he did all his research before Monday’s meeting, asking all his questions to Jackson and Branon. “I know our chief really wanted this camera system, the community wants it,” he said. “I think it’ll deter and it’ll solve crimes a lot faster.”
Bunnell’s police department a decade and more ago was a blot on the city’s image, the scene of serial misconduct among officers, several of whom were indicted, convicted, fired or resigned as a result, including because of abuses of power and police technology–illegal database searches, including of city commissioners’ records, among them.
Rogers remembers those days. He had no concerns about the ethical use of the surveillance system with Branon in place. “Leadership starts at the top, and the chief who’s in place now is an example of excellence,” Rogers said. “He will not tolerate any kind of behavior or activity from his uniformed officers, like decades ago–he would not tolerate that kind of activity. The chief will be the one that will monitor that situation.”
The existing system, originally installed by Web Watchdogs, a local vendor, had seven locations, with two fixed cameras at each, with limited, roughly 90 to 100-degree fields of vision. The system, Wines said, was only compatible with Windows 7. That system’s usability ended in January 2020, making the cameras inoperable. IT requested money for upgrades three years running. “They were considered a low priority,” Wines said. So the city stopped maintaining them. “If a hard drive failed, I just pulled the power off the location,” he said.
The new cameras would provide a 360-view, zoom features, real-time footage giving law enforcement the ability to use the cameras as an incident unfolds, and enough cameras to minimize or eliminate blind spots.
Some vendors provided quotes, some didn’t, because the city’s request for proposals was not precise enough. One vendor was to provide huge storage capacity (54 TB), but its cost would be $352,820, and the city doesn’t even have a secure location where it could keep its server–not until its new city hall is built on Commerce Parkway (city offices are spread out in strip malls, the police department is in a trailer). Phase one would replace the cameras at the seven existing locations, with three cameras in each location. Phase two would add six locations, with new poles. Palm Coast has fiberoptic cable in the area and would provide connectivity.
Commissioner Robert Barnes was concerned about storage, and a server giving the city that capacity. A server is not part of the cost estimate.
State law requires video data to be stored at least 30 days. “Essentially that’s what they’re talking about, storing on the camera itself,” Wines said. “Motorola does have the ability through a software program that they have to put it on a server. They didn’t–Motorola didn’t–see the need for it.”
To be compatible with the Sheriff’s Office, Bunnell would have to use Vigilant, the software the Sheriff’s Office uses (it is owned by a Motorola subsidiary). Ten such cameras would cost $25,000, plus annual software access cost of $30,000. Combined with the leasing of non LPR cameras, the annual access cost alone would be $87,415, based on Wines’s calculation, plus $5,600 for cellular service.
“We know where we’re in the price range when we leave this meeting, and basically we start negotiating a contract with Motorola, and when we bring that contract back, basically we will have the full price,” Jackson said. The administration is undecided between leasing or owning the system outright, so the dollar figures discussed Monday could change considerably. The way to go “will be a part of our recommendation when we come back with the contract,” Jackson said.
A Grand Reserve resident who addressed the commission requested that the city pursue grant funding before spending the money on the system, unless the spending is reimbursable. “We’re talking about a lot of money here, and I know there are resources available for things like this through either state or federal grants,” he said. Jackson said grants will be in the mix as the city phases in the system.
I lived in Lancaster, Pa for many years. Lancaster at one time, was the most watched city in the state. Stil might be. No issues, only watching traffic and crime. It made Lancaster safer.
Lancaster, Denny? Wow, small world. My family is in Volusia but I’m a retired police Detective from Lancaster County, and work for the County as a Detective. I believe you are referring to the Lancaster County Safety Coalition cameras that are all over the city. I can tell you that better than 75% of the crime, to include violent crimes such as Homicides in the streets have been solved by LCSC cameras during our investigations- and we have quite a few of them here. They are invaluable and Chief Brannon should call up to Lancaster (Though I am sure there are other cities in Florida) to see the success rate, and pass it along to the concerned citizens that think possibly big brother is watching. It may put them more at ease.
Where'd da money go says
Sadly, as this was attempted before with the same people in this article that were on the Commission back then, complaining about the cameras being in only the Southside being in the minorityneighborhood.
What changed? Why did you not support this before. Where is this money coming from now?
Everything that was asked by the two previous Chiefs were always cut short because of both opinion and budget.
Now it has the full support of the two most long-term sitting Commissioner’s Mayor and Vice Mayor.
Where as beforehand it was scrutinized by the two of them.
Oh, I think I get it this time you waited till crime became too much to bear in the Southside that even the old Commissioner’s are for the cameras. Someone had to die before you all woke up.
What happened to the question of targeting the black community it was brought up before many times in the past by the Clergy in the area, the past two Black Commissioner’s Daisy Henry and Bonita Robinson and then the Vice Mayor Rogers. Screaming racism.
What no more discussions, because the crime is now so bad that you are willing to overlook the racism discussions?
Since way back when the first cameras were put on line you didn’t have the money to support the cameras so you said , then they feel into disrepair, then not even working to now an elaborate expensive system that requires 100k or more of annual budget support.
Amazing that it took the current dysfunctional Commission and inept City Manager to continue to blow though the cash reserves just to look good since the recent changes in the Bunnell PD.
What a sad joke, the good news is for now the cameras are going up. Who cares how broke the City of Bunnell gets!
I feel sad for the honest folks in the Southside as I don’t see the City putting cameras in the Grand Reserves, or the Commercial areas of the City for the sake of “Public Safety.”
Yea, I feel really safe now too.
It’s sad they always have money for cameras and more police, but not to solve society’s problems that lead to crime.
How are you supposed to solve society’s problems? More welfare, handouts? That’s what has destroyed the traditional family.
By not doing so has destroyed America.
This technology has been proven over and over again to be a very useful tool for investigators after a crime has occurred. It is only a tool though, and is not the end-all that some people might think. Nothing is as valuable to the successful arrest and prosecution of criminals as eye witness testimony. For those who are concerned about retaliation for coming forward, they should at the very least be willing to call the crime stoppers hotline and report what they know annonymously. If more people did that, expensive surveillance camera systems like what is now being implemented in Bunnell would not be necessary, and Bunnell would be a much safer place for those who live and work there.
Clean up your Mess says
How come I can’t get expensive security camera’s on my street ? Maybe then I can see the face of that little bastard old man who walks two dogs late at night and let’s them sh*t on my lawn and then walks away without picking it up. I swear, I’m ready to bag that crap up and throw it on him one night when he’s walking away.
Some suggestions: do you have a sprinkler system with a timer so you can turn it on to water your front lawn late at night when this normally happens? Have you considered following him to where he lives? At least then you would know where to return his deposit LOL.
I am so sick and tired of all of this crap! Why does Palm Coast,Flagler Beach and Bunnell need cameras? Let’s break this down for a minute. Flagler Beach has 3 tag readers within their city limits. One at John Anderson Hwy. one at S. A1A and another at Flagler Ave and State rd. 100. All I ever see are FB cops and deputies just sitting there waiting for a motor vehicle violation etc. I live in Flagler Beach and have don’t so for 23 years. I can count on one hand literally how many police cars have driven down my street. So instead of Community policing all 3 agency’s in Flagler county are relying on the total 314 camera county and city wide to fix whatever serious issues we have. I personally feel like it is a part of our freedom taken away. I have had friends who used to visit me all the time and now they won’t even come to Flagler beach not because they are breaking the lay, but because it’s disgusting to see how the tax dollars are being spent. Is it right that if I drive to Publix from north 12th street and spend approximately 1 hour in the store and drive back over the bridge and see the same 1 or 2 officers sitting on their ass waiting for a violation to occur. Can’t get the fireworks,lifeguards,golf course or a $700,000 grant right but they are sitting on those camera like flies on crap.
So the city of Bunnell is replacing the current cameras for additional cameras which have been shot out😂. But they have a solution. Let’s put more cameras for people to shoot out.
So let’s look back on my city and the costs to run the police department. Officers are paid extremely well and above average for that matter. I know one of them personally who’s name I will keep confidential. He told me that they hardly get any calls in the city and when they do they are usually juvenile crimes,domestic violence and surfers too close to the pier. The current Chief came in as a Captain, turned the department upside down and since he was a retired captain in Daytona Beach decided to bring his own command staff and officers to Flagler Beach. Is Flagler Beach really that bad that they feel the need to have a captain or lieutenant who sit on their butts at the police department everyday they work ? What are they doing Chief? Justify it! I know you’ll see this arrival, but don’t have the guts to explain yourself. Why don’t I see a police car drive down N. 12th st.,Why are your officers always sitting on the west side of the bridge for hours. Why do you Feel the need to have suck a BIG command staff when you can’t justify it. Why do Sergeants never take the calls directly? When was the last time a sergeant physically took a call for vandalism,theft,disorderly intoxicated persons. How is any of this fair to your ground troops who seem to always be stuck with the burden.
If anyone can shed the light for me to better understand please do. Good or bad I’d love to hear from you. I can go on and on here but I won’t right now. I’m going to get all of the public records I can possible get from our police department and fire services included and will then obtain the same from the city of bunnell. I won’t bother with the sheriffs office as of yet because they are wayyyy to LARGE for a county of this size. Whatcha gonna do when the city of palm coast gets its own police department Rick? Whatcha gonna do with all your fancy equipment? Stick it out on a horse pasture as a souvenir.
Totally agree about Flagler Beach where I live also. It makes me crazy to see all those cops just sitting around looking for traffic violations on 100. They should be patrolling the neighborhoods until they receive a call especially at night. I guess this is why it was too much on them to handle people watching fireworks, they will have their plan to spend 24 hours sitting by Wadsworth Park watching their illegal speed trap. We don’t need local police anymore, contract with Sheriff Staly.
Hey, you missed something else to be upset about, costing lots and lots of taxpayer money and just sitting there mostly unused, day after day after day. FIRE HYDRANTS! Oh my, what a huge, expensive waste of taxpayer dollars and government resources. Do you know how many fire hydrants are just SITTING there, all over the city and county?! What about way back whenfingerprint technology was developed? Wow, all those “crime fighters” just sitting at their desks looking at smudges through magnafying glasses. What a crock, and a complete waste of time when they could be out walking a beat, taking REAL criminals off the street instead of hiding in their offices looking at smudges. Seriously now, James, there have been so, so many technological advancements throughout history that have completely changed policing in America and the rest of the world. Had our local city and county law enforcement agencies NOT changed with the rest of the country and taken advantage of technology that is available, our LEOs would still be riding horseback and sending important messages via smoke signals. New technology instead allows them to work more efficiently, safely and solve way more crimes than they could when Wyatt Earp was the town marshall in Tombstone, Arizona.
Ski bum I agree with you to an extent. But look at the data. It’s all public record. When you have an agency life FBPD or BPD’s numbers don’t add up. For instance a security check in a business constitutes a call. A traffic stop is a call. And on a monthly average both departments use those numbers as statistics. Not sure if you live in FB as well and if so I’d love to tell me when you see police cars just patrolling the back streets, ally’s and the lambert/village areas. I just wish more citizens would step up to the plate and recognize this. I am just one person and I see it all the time. Surly many other residents do as well, but won’t say/do anything about it. Trying to get a private meeting with the city manager is impossible. I have been trying for 3 months and he never has time to talk. I can go on and on and it’s simply what I have observed the 23 years that i have lived here. I’m not trying to start a bitching match. I just want what’s right to be just that.
I don’t have any stats myself to dispute what you are saying about FBPD and BPD, and haven’t spent much time observing them other than when I’m driving over the intercoastal bridge into FB for a meal at the beach. Stats are easily manipulated, I know that for sure. When I was a deputy sheriff in CA, our sheriff was the coroner, so every deputy sheriff was also a deputy coroner and called to every unattended death in the county to conduct an investigation. One stat I was good at achieving each month was the number of warrant arrests I made. Some of them were on subjects that were found deceased, but during a death investigation if I ran the person’s name and it came back with an active warrant for their arrest, I was allowed to “serve” the warrant on the dead person in order to clear it from the system. I am still amused by the fact that I arrested quite a few dead people over the course of my career, LOL! So much for stats.
Perhaps they need to set a Neighborhood Crime Watch Program. Get so many residents to walk the streets every night and day. Sheriff Staly could assist in getting it organized.
Concerned about storage, and a server? They need to be concerned about those cameras getting shot out and destroyed….Say it won’t happen….it’s all fun and games until those hoodies get tightened around their face where they can’t be identified and those cameras get shot up….it’s not going to deter the crime from happening…they see where you are putting the cameras up…they will take their nonsense to another part of the city where there are no cameras…use that money you are spending on cameras and get a few more officers…you think you guys would learn from past experience…guess not.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but you’re giving way too much credit to the criminal element out there. Most of them are not thinking 5 minutes ahead of what they are doing, they aren’t thinking about the consequences of their behavior because they believe they are too smart to get caught… until they get caught. Then they rationalize and it wasn’t their fault, they were just hanging out with the wrong people. They are only sorry when they are locked up… mainly sorry they got caught. They usually vow to change their lives, never to mess up again when they are about to be released back into society, and then when they are released, they go right back to the same neighborhood, hang out again with the same misfits, have visions of making $$$ by the easiest, least labor intensive methods possible, and bang, law enforcement is after them again. It is rational and makes common sense (to us) to think that the criminal element would concentrate on things such as what you commented on because it makes perfect sense. They don’t think like most reasonable people, so not to worry.
Is this the SAME “Daisy Henry” who stood up at a city meeting to “snitch” on people selling drugs near HER house? She wasn’t too concerned about other people’s privacy then, was she? Besides, no “families” frequent that park save for the rare weekend when there is a gathering, otherwise the ONLY people there are young people selling and doing drugs. Again, I marvel at the level of protection given to our criminals. This time it’s in the guise of “protecting families” and their privacy …unless those families are near HER house
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.