A classic U.S. suburban community, Noblesville, Indiana, has seen amazing growth over the past few years, and the city, which was once simply a beloved bedroom community to Indianapolis, began to transform into a destination of its own, with a burgeoning medical technology industry, a historic downtown, a regional entertainment destination, and one of the most respected police departments in the state.

As the city continued to evolve, the Noblesville Police Department
wanted to evolve their police force along with it, recognizing the value associated with investing in technologies that support both the city’s officers and the community.

“Nationwide, we began to see police interactions being recorded by cellphones, but these citizen-recorded videos rarely captured an officer’s perspective, nor did they show the entirety of the interaction,” said Noblesville Police Chief John Mann. “It became a daily conversation among our team, and as our community continued to grow, we wanted to make the smartest decisions to support policing tactics that focus on transparency and effectiveness, not just for those we serve, but for our officers, too.”

The Need for Body-Worn Cameras

With that technology strategy in mind, Chief Mann and his team, including Assistant Chief of Police Brad Arnold and Deputy Chief Eric Cunningham, began exploring body-worn camera technologies to outfit the city’s 93 sworn officers. With an aging in-car system, the team knew a full solution was needed. This is when Utility’s comprehensive ecosystem first caught their attention.

“The full solution was paramount in the decision to utilize Utility,” said Arnold. “Our community is geographically dispersed, spanning more than 35 miles, which presents communication challenges, and we needed a technology that could support that. When we were researching video solutions, most systems had one or two features that set them apart, but Utility offered a fully integrated ecosystem that gave us the ability to have unprecedented connectivity with our officers, and with each new feature we were introduced to, it quickly became clear that Utility was the best available choice for Noblesville.”

Gaining Officer and Community Buy-In

As the team worked to select a body-worn camera product, gaining officer buy-in was a top priority in order to lay the groundwork for a smooth rollout. “We didn’t want our officers to feel like they were being put upon, so we purposely involved them early in the process,” said Arnold. “Officers were able to test three different systems for themselves, putting them through the paces, and we then gave officers the opportunity to give their recommendations. They unanimously selected Utility.”

The Utility ecosystem was also a “no-brainer” for the community, following Chief Mann’s proposal, which included no less than 20 points about what set the Utility solution apart. Those points included but were not limited to policy-based automatic recording, immediate video offload during recording, and the BodyWorn Officer Down feature, not to mention that the full solution was $450,000 less than the next competitor. The city council voted to approve the contract and training and deployment began in May 2020.

Delivering Positive Impacts

The Noblesville system, which includes BodyWorn cameras, RocketIoT in-car video and communications, the AVaiLWEB evidence management system, Smart ALPR, and interview room cameras, delivered positive impacts for the agency nearly immediately. Cunningham, who leads the agency’s patrol division, said “To have an operating picture of how our whole ecosystem is working has given us the opportunity to realize new efficiencies, and it has streamlined the workload for both the department and folks outside of the agency like the prosecutor’s office.”

The technology has also boosted agency morale as officers trust in the system, “We had a traffic complaint come in about an officer, and the citizen wasn’t just incorrect, but they were asserting that our officers are dishonest,” said Cunningham. “The Utility system allowed us to quickly respond to the citizen complaint in such a thorough way that the citizen actually apologized to the officer. This is a small win when you consider the system holistically, but more broadly, this is a testament to the capabilities we have now with the technology to reinforce transparency and accountability with the community and to support our officers.”

“We wanted a system in place to show what our officers are doing right, to be completely transparent and to be able to tell the whole story of the service we give,” says Mann. “Our officers know that the BodyWorn technology has their back when they’re out there doing the right thing, and our community knows that the total ecosystem is going to make their excellent officers even better. In that way, engaging with Utility is like a big insurance policy that keeps giving back.”