Building Bridges: How Law Enforcement is Unifying Communities with Technology

Safety and security are basic human needs, and essential to a thriving society. But in today’s challenging cultural climate, how do you best protect the public? How can cities—or any entity—build lasting trust, transparency and value? And how do we learn from the transformation that’s already occurring in law enforcement?

In this episode of Connect, you’ll learn why integration, or better yet, unity, is the key to success. Our guest, Marshall Freeman, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, Atlanta Police Department, and former Chief Operating Officer, Atlanta Police Foundation, will discuss how his forward-thinking organization is integrating technologies, public-private partnerships and resident feedback, to build a stronger, safer community.

Join us as Marshall shares how the Atlanta Police Department’s innovative programs evolve from ideas to community wide rollouts. We’ll examine the importance of evaluating technology, developing pilot programs and properly measuring effectiveness. We’ll also spend time demystifying emerging technologies and understanding how they can be used to fill staffing gaps, enhance employee satisfaction and improve public safety. 

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Transcript

Scott Dunn (00:05):

From AI and deep learning, to cybersecurity and IoT, keeping up with technology can be challenging.

James Marcella (00:14):

Our podcast is not just about helping you keep up, we're inviting you to the precipice of what we now know is possible.

Scott Dunn (00:20):

Join us as we interview industry luminaries and trailblazers to hear how they're leveraging technology, navigating the pitfalls and predicting the future.

James Marcella (00:32):

Together, we'll explore today's most timely topics, combining human imagination and intelligent technologies to discover new solutions.

Scott Dunn (00:43):

I am happy to introduce my co-host, Mr. James Marcella, security expert and industry association leader.

James Marcella (00:52):

And it's a pleasure to introduce Scott Dunn, technology innovator and award-winning speaker.

Scott Dunn (00:58):

And this is Connect, a bimonthly podcast from Axis Communications.

James Marcella (01:06):

On today's episode, I'll be speaking with Marshall Freeman about the future of law enforcement and the role of emerging technology. Hey, Marshall Freeman, this is James Marcella. Welcome to Connect. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Marshall Freeman (01:21):

Hey, James. Well, thank you again for having me. I am Marshall Freeman, and I serve as Chief Operating Officer at the Atlanta Police Foundation. Just a little bit about the Atlanta Police Foundation, it is a nonprofit organization that works hard to lead the strategy for public safety in the city of Atlanta, in conjunction with the mayor and the Chief of Police.

James Marcella (01:42):

It sounds great. We're going to spend the majority of our time today, I bet, focused on technology. I went on your website and saw that you have programs, At-Promise, Crime Stoppers, Secure Neighborhoods. Tell us a little bit about that before we dive down into technology.

Marshall Freeman (01:58):

Sure. So the organization has about 36 different programs, and again, those sort of run the gamut. A couple of the marquee programs we have would be our Secure Neighborhoods program, in which we build houses for police officers to encourage them to live in the neighborhoods in which they patrol. We also utilize it as a crime reduction initiative. Obviously, putting a police officer with the police car into a particular challenge neighborhood helps us to reduce crime, and so we have lots of officers that are living throughout the community in these single family homes.

(02:30):

Another really cool thing we did earlier this year was open our first recruit apartment complex. So right on the west side of Atlanta, we have a 30-unit apartment complex designed for police recruits, mostly folks that are taking the job with APD from out-of-state. Atlanta is no different than any other major city throughout the country. Real estate is expensive, rent, as we know it, is going up throughout the day, and so these recruits are able to live affordably while they are going through the academy, so we're really excited about that program.

James Marcella (03:02):

So getting involved with the community, engaging with the community has been an important aspect of what the Atlanta Police Foundation is doing.

Marshall Freeman (03:11):

100%, James, and today's world, I think we all have to continue to work to build those bridges with the community.

James Marcella (03:18):

I couldn't agree more. It was a really neat initiative to see, and the idea of bringing law enforcement officers into the neighborhoods that they serve seems like such a great no-brainer idea, right?

Marshall Freeman (03:29):

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

James Marcella (03:30):

So let's talk a little bit about some of the other programs that really engage technology. I think that technology plays an important role in law enforcement and policing. What are some of the ways that technology is used today by law enforcement to be more effective?

Marshall Freeman (03:48):

So we really rely on technology a lot. Obviously, in today's world, I think most police departments throughout the country are experiencing a significant shortage in staffing, and I think the way in which we're able to at least overcome a little bit of that is by utilizing technology, and so when we think about the use of technology, it's sort of our stopgap. It's the way in which we can sort of have some visibility, give some situational awareness to officers that might be responding to an incident, but also have some eyes and ears out there. Now, I think we are obviously challenged with once you utilize technology for maybe surveillance and you use technology for RMS or record management systems, body-worn cameras, and all these different things that a police department may experience in today's world, now, how do you make all those things compatible and work together? That would be the area in which, I think we are obviously challenged today as we talk about evolving technology in law enforcement.

James Marcella (04:42):

So the integration becomes one of the most important aspects.

Marshall Freeman (04:45):

Absolutely. Absolutely.

James Marcella (04:48):

So tell us a little bit about Operation Shield and the origins of that program, where it's at today, and where you think the future of it's going.

Marshall Freeman (04:56):

So Operation Shield actually started here in Atlanta back in 2012, just with a few cameras that were sort of put up, but the conversation began with the Mayor. Mayor Franklin said, "We can't afford to put up these," what he called expensive cameras. The city's budget was obviously tapped, so they turned to the Police Foundation and said, "Hey, how can you guys help us to build a surveillance camera network here for the City of Atlanta?," and so we actually designed that program in conjunction with the Mayor, and residents and community members. Community members said, "Hey, we'd pay for them. We'd help to fund them."

(05:29):

"Why don't we make some donations over to the Police Foundation to allow you guys this sort of capability and technology?," and that's sort of how the program was essentially designed and created. It was every step of the way with community, and so that's why we always talk about community being such an important part of what we do.

James Marcella (05:49):

So this is a public-private partnership between the City of Atlanta, the police foundation, and then private entities who are helping fund infrastructure, fund cameras to go into different neighborhoods.

Marshall Freeman (06:02):

Yeah. So imagine we essentially took the map of Atlanta, which is six different zones, and we work with APD and said, "Okay, in a perfect world, draw on this map where you would want a license plate reader," or, "Draw on this map where you want a PTZ." They sort of did that sort of math and plotted it all on the map. Then, our team went out, and then started to work with the residents, and HOA leaders, and presidents of all of the ... We have these things called NPUs, which are neighborhood planning units in Atlanta.

(06:30):

We started working with the NPUs, and we would go and say, "Hey, listen. APD really needs a camera or a license plate reader right outside of your neighborhood. Now, we're going to make that thing pretty visible. We're going to put a sign on there that says, 'Atlanta Police Department.' We're going to put a gigantic blue light for you guys as well, and we'd like for you to pass the hat and make a donation to the Police Foundation," so they make these donations to the foundation that includes the cost of the device, the connectivity, the maintenance and care for that device, so that's essentially how we've built that entire system.

(07:04):

Then, back a few years ago, once we realized that we had the capability of getting all of these devices up and rolling, one of the big things we needed to do was obviously build a place where all these cameras would feed into, so the Police Foundation also spent $1 million to build the Video Integration Center, in which APD utilizes as their central hub for camera connectivity.

James Marcella (07:26):

It's called short-term Video Integration System, the VIC. So tell us a little bit about that. What other type of technology are the operators and the VIC able to utilize to help police be more effective out there?

Marshall Freeman (07:38):

So we have centrally located the Video Integration Center directly adjacent to the E911 Center. We do have a system today where once the call for service is placed based on the address or the origin of that incident, then the four closest cameras are actually put up in that camera feed for that VIC operator, so the VIC is trying to maybe troubleshoot that incident, understand in real time what may be happening, and relay that information down to the responding officer in real time. Then, second to that, the VIC is used obviously for the investigative portion of it, so post-crime officers and investigators are able to also find the camera footage and sort of go through it all and try to figure out what has happened, and then continue to increase our solvability rate for crimes and incidents here in Atlanta. So one other thing I'd point out is that when we talk about the VIC, and, James, I think this is sort of a cool thing, at least for me, so we wrote out this thing called Connect Atlanta, utilizing the Fusus platform, and so now, every officer within the Atlanta Police Department has access to the entire camera network, whereas in the past, it was only the folks in the Video Integration Center, so we're sort of moving to this concept of a real-time camera network versus a real-time crime center, if you will. It definitely has changed operationally the way in which officers have interacted with the technology, which I think is pretty cool, because you got so many new officers that are coming on board, and the new generation, I mean, you can hand them a cellphone or hand them a tool, and they can totally figure it out without any guidance at all.

James Marcella (09:15):

How do you measure the effectiveness of the VIC, and what type of impact has it had on the police officer's ability to do their job?

Marshall Freeman (09:24):

So I definitely think the solvability rate is one thing that we definitely point to when we think about investigations. The City of Atlanta has a really high solvability rate for crime here, utilizing our camera network. Then also, we think about, "How do we try to displace crime or stop and prevent crimes from actually taking place in the beginning?," and we do that by putting up those cameras, making them really visible, putting those blue lights on them, and putting signage on there with the idea and hope that, again, criminals are going to just say, "Well, it's no cent to me breaking in to a home on this particular street or committing a crime on this particular street because I can clearly see up and down this block." There are tons of blue lights, and so for us, it's been, again, a really cool tool that we've tried to use in every way we can to try to reduce crime here in Atlanta.

James Marcella (10:09):

We've established that there's some deterrent involved with having these highly visible cameras out there, and this is a community-oriented program. Have you seen crime being displaced from one area to another because these cameras are deployed in one particular area, and then do you use that as a way to get buy-in from other folks within the community?

Marshall Freeman (10:30):

That studying of the impact of the network is something that we do pretty frequently, and we do, again, message that right back to the community to, again, show how the camera network is working. I think, ultimately, it goes into a bigger picture about community satisfaction and resident satisfaction. When you think about their police department, when you think about the folks that are working every day to try to reduce crime in their neighborhoods, they want to understand the impact, and they do want to also know that the police department is doing everything they can. Now, will cameras ever reduce crime completely or eliminate crime completely? Absolutely not.

(11:04):

I think we all know that, but I do think there's a satisfaction portion that goes along with this, where residents do want to know, "Okay, the Police Chief and the Mayor are doing every single thing they can to try to mitigate crime in my neighborhood," and I think that matters.

James Marcella (11:18):

I would certainly think so. I suspect that some of the programs that we discussed earlier, the At-Promise, Crime Stoppers, Secure Neighborhoods, things like that probably help develop a sense of trust with the community. You're not just rolling out technology, you're actually engaging the community. What are the ways that the foundation initially used to introduce new technology in a way that was transparent and really maintain the trust with the community?

Marshall Freeman (11:44):

I think it was totally, James, building the program with the community. So you flashback to that community meeting that I referenced with the Mayor. Right after that, it was a matter of thinking about these cameras and things that we were going to put up. We then wrote some SOPs or standard operating procedures that were then, again, sort of tossed around and bounced around with the community. How do you guys feel about this operationally?

(12:08):

I think involving them along the journey is definitely the thing that we have tried to do with every program in which we have had at the foundation.

James Marcella (12:16):

So, Marshall, rolling out these different technologies, Operation Shield for instance, and everything that you're doing at the VIC, were there any unintended consequences, whether they be negative or positive with the deployment that you didn't foresee?

Marshall Freeman (12:30):

So I definitely think when you talk about unintended consequences, I think one of the biggest issues we see with technology would be the fiscal part of it. It's the expense of it that I think still cities are so challenged in, "How do you pay for this?," 'cause law enforcement technology is expensive, and I think it is why it's really important that we find solutions and have things in the city, where all of these different technologies, things can all play together because there's so many folks out there that sell technology that only want it to be restricted to their particular product, and nobody wants to play in the sandbox together, so it's one of the things we think about as we're adopting new technology and bringing new things on about, "How can everybody work together?," and if you're not willing to work with every other company that we already have that's in the technology ecosystem in Atlanta, then you know what? You just can't be here, because it just won't work because it's unaffordable.

James Marcella (13:22):

Yeah, the cost of deploying these solutions certainly can get pretty high. You mentioned the public-private partnership earlier and where you had maybe even private citizens, but certainly, companies and others within the community donate money in order to bring this technology in. Any work with federal or state grants for growing that system at all?

Marshall Freeman (13:45):

Our funding completely comes from a really good group of folks, and when I say good group, I make it sound like it's two. It's not. It's tons of folks that support the work in which we do every day. Those are corporations, the corporate executives, and the philanthropic community here in Atlanta, and that want to support the work in which we do, so we've, again, got a great group of stakeholders that we can go to and say, "Hey, we'd like to acquire this particular new technology," or, "We'd like to make this enhancement to the work in which the officers are doing every day," and every single time, our group of supporters continue to show up.

James Marcella (14:18):

Fantastic. So clearly, open standards and integration capability is important to you. What are some of the other things you look for when you're looking at technology and you want to prioritize different companies to work with?

Marshall Freeman (14:32):

I think it's also the talent of the company, right, because, again, as I referenced earlier on the law enforcement side, by no mean am I a tech expert in this, but I would definitely say what we rely on is the talent and the skills of those particular companies. I can go take an idea and say, "Here's what I'm thinking. I don't know what I'm thinking. Help me flush this out. Am I looking at this the right way or am I looking at this the wrong way?," and I think it's important that a company says, "You know what?"

(14:56):

"We'll help you build that out," and yes, maybe in the end we get to a conclusion or a decision that says, "Yep, the right product for you is our product, or maybe it's not," and I think that's equally as important where you can actually have people that you rely on to have that level of expertise and to help guide you.

James Marcella (15:13):

That is precisely the type of relationship that we look for in the folks that we want to work with, and frankly, the ability to build trust between our organizations, and really work together to solve problems, at the end of the day, that's very rewarding, just as rewarding for us as it is for you, being the practitioner and being the one that actually has people out on the street, leveraging this technology. Is there a process by which you look at and evaluate new technology?

Marshall Freeman (15:42):

There is. We try to do our evaluation sort of in three-year periods, frankly. So every three years, we sit down, and at the police foundation, we build what we call our strategic plan, and it takes us through this three-year time frame, so we have, on the front end, whole lot of conversation with the Mayor, with the Police Chief, and the executive command staff, and at that time, we sort of establish what our priorities will be for the next three years, and most of the time, we find ourselves being pretty consistent with that, but then every now and then, some technology or some issue arises that we need to sort of address. One of the things that I created a couple of years ago that helps us to do that is this cool thing that I call Discovery Day, and so every quarter, I bring in an entire room, the command staff from the police department, along with the Police Foundation staff, and we will then say, "Okay, we've got three different technology or vendors or things that we'd like to sort of look at and discuss throughout this time." We go through this presentation of, "Here's what the technology is. Here's what it does."

(16:42):

What questions does the entire room have, because I have found, James, that before this, I would drive myself crazy going to the Chief saying, "What do you think about this Deputy Chief? What do you think about this, the Major?" Now, I've become a lot smarter by saying, "Let me get everybody in the same room," and then have the conversation one time. Out of that room, we've decided to either pilot the technology or not, so it's really been a really cool process to help us to really bring some things to market a whole lot faster because we've got fiscal sitting there, we've got the attorney sitting there and can get the consensus at one time.

James Marcella (17:13):

You mentioned pilot. Clearly, you pilot these technologies before you roll them out. What's that typical process look like? How long does that take from ideation to actually rolling something out that's used by law enforcement?

Marshall Freeman (17:26):

One of the benefits when we think about pilots is the Police Foundation. We have an entire team here that works on technology. We have the benefit of having a group of civilians over here, who this is all they do each and every day, so once we establish that we're going forward with something, man, we're moving at 1,000 miles an hour to try to get that thing up and rolling as fast as we possibly can.

James Marcella (17:48):

I was at the National Real Time Crime Center Association. One of the things that they talked about there was inter-agency operational communication, and the idea that they could share information between their Real Time Crime Center or, in this case, your VIC with other agencies, whether those be federal or state and local. Have you found that that's the case of ... Is that something that the City of Atlanta is doing on certain issues?

Marshall Freeman (18:19):

Yes, and prioritizing that for us is critical, and so Atlanta, if you guys know anything about Atlanta, it is totally segmented into counties. So there's Fulton County, there's Cobb County, there's Gwinnett County, there's all these different areas around here, and nobody talks together or works together until you get to a specific task force. Well, there's a whole lot of information that we have, a whole lot of information that each of these other counties have, so that was one of the things that also pushed us over to Fusus, because we saw the region also shifting there, and it was a really cool way for us to all integrate and all work together. It's VMS agnostic, so it really helps to make the seamless integration so that everybody can all play nice together. Again, a criminal has no concept or idea or care about a county line or a city line. No.

James Marcella (19:06):

[inaudible 00:19:07].

Marshall Freeman (19:06):

I mean, they're going to commit crime wherever it happens, so I think that if we can all work together and share the same information, I think we'd see regionally, us just be a whole lot more stronger and healthier together.

James Marcella (19:18):

Is there anything that we didn't cover that you would like to bring up and make sure it gets covered?

Marshall Freeman (19:25):

I definitely think that we will see technology continue to shift to fill the stopgap for staffing issues. As we think about law enforcement, I do think we're going to start to see some AI stuff that's going to hopefully come on board to help us in the area of retention, which is one of the things I'm really probably most excited and passionate about. We see officers continuing to leave the profession because there is sort of a lack of job satisfaction. I think when you think about the diversity of roles, it's one of the things that I've been most passionate about in trying to find a solution for. Law enforcement, it's sort of a command and control organization, obviously, but it's putting a butt in a seat, and so I think you find some folks that are showing up to work every day, and maybe they have a degree in HR, and they'd love to be in background and recruiting, but they're working in the zone on a beat, and so I think if we can start to use AI, use technology to start to understand behaviors, work patterns, things about officers, job satisfaction, I think we would start to align the department in a much better way by utilizing these things that could help us, these tools and things that would help us when you think about retaining officers and creating that sort of satisfaction.

(20:37):

Then, the last thing, I'd say, to that would be, obviously facial recognition is a whole 'nother thing that I do think we will probably at some point see this country sort of shift in a manner on which facial recognition becomes a little bit more acceptable, especially considering, I mean, people are using iPhones for recognizing your face. If you go to the airport, I can almost promise you that facial recognition is somewhere in there anyway, and so I think it will probably move to a place in which it becomes a little bit more of an acceptable term, and so that's just my thoughts about where I think we're going.

James Marcella (21:09):

I agree with your take on facial recognition, and I think that the U.S. has seen a number of communities, municipalities roll out facial recognition bans or consider them, but then, most recently, over the last year, a lot of those have been pulled back and we're starting to see more and more use of facial recognition out there. What do you think are the specific challenges? Is it just bad public perception? What are the challenges that are holding back facial recognition as you'd like to see it used in law enforcement?

Marshall Freeman (21:44):

What I would say on the AI part of it, again, I think it's a bad PR issue at this point, because I think if people understood how powerful it could be to actually help and aid in a lot of different situations, then I think people wouldn't be so scared of it. I think people would automatically assume that, "This is going to be used to spy on me," "This is going to be used to tell people what I don't want them to know," but when you really think about it, the upside to it is that the opportunity is there to actually help us in a lot of different incidents. I think back through a time in which earlier this year, we had a dementia patient who had wandered off from home, who her daughter called the PD and said, "Hey, my mom is missing," and she provided a photo of that mother. Well, thankfully, we do have some AI capability, not facial recognition, but we have some AI capability within our network of cameras that's able to identify clothing or objects, and so we were able to finally find this mom across town who had wandered onto a bus, so I just think, again, people have this negative perception for what it could be used for, but I think there's a greater story to tell about how it could really help us and aiding incidents and things like that.

James Marcella (23:06):

Those are incredible stories about how technology can be used to really improve outcomes with regards to any AI or facial recognition tool that helps law enforcement be more effective. It's just a tool, right? There's still process, procedure that has to be followed, and oftentimes, it's that part that I don't think the public gets to see, and how transparent is that, do you feel, with the Atlanta Police Department as far as, "This is just a tool"? What do I do with that?

Marshall Freeman (23:37):

We try to be as transparent as we possibly can. Some of the other cool things that we have done with the network in which the enhancement we've made earlier this year is that it gives us an auditing trail. We can understand any officer that has watched any video, downloaded any video at any time, so we did do some really cool things and put as many protections as we can in place that obviously continues to make sure that we uphold this standard for how the technology is used.

James Marcella (24:04):

Marshall, thank you for taking the time. This has been a great conversation, and look forward to talking to you again sometime in the future.

Marshall Freeman (24:11):

Thank you so much, James. This has been absolutely a pleasure, man. I'm honored to have participated, so thank you, guys, for having me.

James Marcella (24:19):

Thank you for joining us as we explored some of the ways technology is being used in Atlanta to build community buy-in and increase public safety. I'm James Marcella, and this is Connect, a podcast from Axis Communications.

Scott Dunn (24:35):

Thanks for listening to the Connect Podcast.

James Marcella (24:38):

The Connect Podcast is produced in collaboration with Gusto, a Matter company.