The Dayton City Commission approved the police department’s proposed use of something called a Fusus technology real-time crime center platform at their meeting this week.
Here's how the Fusus video sharing platform will work: The Dayton police will reach out to people downtown who own security cameras at places like schools, businesses, apartment complexes, and traffic intersections. If those people choose to opt-in to the platform, then their cameras will have the Fusus technology added to them, which will let police access their live video streams in the event of a crime. It’s already being used in some departments across the country–including Reno, Gary, and Atlanta.
The approval came after the Dayton Police have promoted the surveillance technology across the city at community meetings the past few weeks. Dayton Police have said that the real-time access to surveillance videos that Fusus technology provides will help them be better at their jobs.
Before the commission voted to approve Fusus, they held a public hearing about it.
Sandy Gudorf of the Downtown Dayton Partnership said her stakeholders support the use of the surveillance tool.
"We've seen great progress downtown since 2010, over $3 billion of investment.” Gudorf said, “and the perception of safety is critical to investment decisions."
Other members of the public opposed the technology, citing concerns about privacy and the potential for it to be used to overpolice black and brown communities.
Destiny Brown, a community organizer with local non-profit law firm Advocates for Basic Legal Equity, said the police’s proposal for Fusus didn’t include clearly defined safeguards against abuse of the technology, statistics about its effectiveness, or independent evaluations.
“The technology is neutral, but the officers that operate them can be biased,” Brown said.
Dayton Chief of Police Kamran Afzal and Support Services Division Major Paul Saunders also presented during the hearing. Saunders likened the new technology to a peer-to-peer payment service like Venmo or Zelle.
“When my oldest was in school, when she wanted $20, I had to go to an ATM, put the card in and get $20 out, and the $20 went away. My youngest is in high school and now I don't go to the bank. I don't go to the ATM. I don't ever have cash. I open my phone up and I send it to her and the end result is I'm still out $20 bucks. They're up $20,” Saunders said. “The process is quicker. That's what this is. In essence, it is providing what we've always done. We always went out and knocked on doors and citizens shared their videos.”
After some tense debate between commissioners and with the police about when the technology could be triggered, city officials ultimately approved the use of Fusus by the police with a 3-2 vote (Joseph, Mims, Shaw voting yes in favor, Fairchild and Turner-Sloss voting no).
The vote was another example of the split that has sometimes occurred since the beginning of 2022 between Dayton’s more establishment democratic commissioners (Joseph, Mims, and Shaw) and the more progressive duo of Fairchild and Turner-Sloss.
The police surveillance tool will start to be used in downtown Dayton starting early next month, the city’s department said.
The Ohio Attorney General's office is paying for the trial of FUSUS in downtown Dayton until the end of June. After that, the city will have to pay if it wants to keep using it.
Chris Welter is a reporter and corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms.
