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CITY COUNCIL <br />WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT <br />ITEM NO. 4 <br />STAFF ORIGINATOR: William Owens, Public Safety Captain <br />WORK SESSION DATE: January 6, 2025 <br />TOPIC: Digital Evidence System Replacement <br />BACKGROUND <br />On September 11, 2023, Council authorized the Public Safety Department to spend $200,000 <br />from the public safety aid funding source to purchase replacement equipment for our digital <br />mobile evidence system in 2024. Our current digital mobile evidence system is the Panasonic <br />Arbitrator system, which includes dash cameras in our squad cars, body worn cameras on our <br />police officers, and evidentiary cameras in our interview room and our detention facility. Our <br />current dash cameras were refreshed and body worn cameras implemented in 2018. At that <br />time, we used the old Video Processing Units (VPU) from our old dash cameras to function in <br />our interview room and our detention facility. <br />The Public Safety Department assembled a committee to research available digital evidence <br />systems and make a recommendation after finding the best option. The committee completed <br />an initial review of several digital evidence systems and narrowed down the options to four <br />platforms that would potentially meet our needs: Pro -Vision, Panasonic, Motorola, and Axon. <br />The committee heard presentations from those four companies and concluded the Axon <br />system was the best option of the four based upon the committee's criteria for necessary <br />features, officer safety functions, ease of use, and installation plan. <br />The committee consulted with Metro-INET and learned that of the nine police departments <br />with body worn camera programs they support (excluding Lino Lakes), four of them have <br />transitioned to the Axon system, two of them have the Panasonic system that Lino Lakes <br />currently has, two have the Motorola system, and one has the updated version of Panasonic. <br />Metro-INET's IT Client Services Manager provided a favorable review of the Axon system, <br />noting the conversions to Axon in Roseville, Anoka, and Forest Lake have been "very well <br />organized, Axon provides outfitters to make the changes in the squads, and both the planning <br />and the support provided by Axon has been high quality." Furthermore, Metro-INET noted that <br />the transition to the current version of Panasonic's system for one of their clients has not gone <br />well and has encountered several issues. Additionally, Metro-INET advised us that their clients <br />