SAN ANTONIO – The Northside Independent School District's Police Department is responsible for protecting and serving more than 106,000 students spread out over 355 square miles.
It can be a challenge for the agency's 100 officers, but thanks to some new technology upgrades, those officers have thousands of extra eyes to help them keep watch.
In 2014, Northside voters passed a $648,340,000 bond package. One million dollars of that bond money was used to make upgrades to the police department's communications system.
Police Chief Charles Carnes said the money has been used to improve the technology in the department's communications center, where dispatchers answer calls 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It's also where dispatchers can see all of the district's video surveillance cameras.
"We have just a little over 7,000 cameras here at Northside," Carnes said. "They're a tremendous help, a tremendous deterrent. They've been a tool and a resource that we couldn't have sat down and thought of all the benefits that we've reaped from having the cameras."
Cameras have been on Northside ISD campuses for several years. They were first installed at high school and middle school campuses and then recently added to elementary schools and support facilities.
Before the cameras, officers would be dispatched not knowing exactly what they were going to find.
"We would receive a call, dispatch an officer, then receive information back from that officer upon arrival," Carnes said. "He would tell us if we need more officers, or exactly what was going on, or if anyone was still at that scene."
When the cameras came online, dispatchers could view the video on their computer screens and relay detailed information to the responding officer.
Thanks to the upgrades, dispatchers can now view multiple cameras on one large screen that consists of four 55-inch monitors mounted on a wall in the communications center. They can also pull up a map and see where all of the officers are located using GPS and dispatch the closest unit to a call and then switch over to the cameras to see what's going on.
"If we get a call at a school dispatch, (we) can send an officer to that location, bring up a camera before an officer arrives, start looking around for the person of interest, give a description to the officer en route to the school, give a specific location where this person is at and arm that officer with a lot of information before his or her arrival," Carnes said. "The officer is armed with more information than they ever had in the past before arriving on scene."
With schools in San Antonio, Helotes, Shavano Park and Leon Valley, dispatchers also closely monitor those police radio channels. If one of those agencies is involved in a situation that occurs close to a school, the dispatchers can initiate a lockdown at any of the affected schools with a touch of a button.
"If (an agency) is in pursuit of someone and they're getting close to our schools, we can hear that on the radio. We can send an officer to that school. If they are getting too close to our school for comfort, we can also lock a school down. In other words, lock the exterior doors, notify that school as to what's going on on the outside of the surrounding areas of the community and be able to lock the school down," Carnes said. "We bring our cameras up and we can actually see outside of the school and help protect our school that way through the eyes of the camera, feeding information to the officers when necessary. If you go into an emergency situation, it's much easier to lock those doors electronically, than have staff run from door to door that are unlocked to manually lock them down."
The new system certainly rivals the capabilities of most small police departments, but Carnes said it's become necessary to keep the district's students, staff and visitors safe.
"Obviously there's been tragedy across this nation, and that's why we're here, to protect and serve," Carnes said. "I want the community and the parents to know that their kids are safe, they have a good environment to come and learn. That's important. You can't learn when you feel insecure."