Yolo County Sheriff | Aircraft-mounted camera
A December 2017 Board of Supervisors agenda item asked for $110,000 of Cannabis Task Force funding to mount an Epsilon 140 camera system on the Sheriff's Aerosquadron plane, with night vision, high definition recording and a real-time feed to deputies on the ground. Nothing in the records we fetched mentions the camera after that item.
At a glance
- Camera system named in the request
- Epsilon 140 camera system, from SkyIMD of Richmond, California, without a competitive bid [1]
- Stated purpose
- Aerial surveillance for the Yolo County Narcotics Enforcement Team, and "monitoring legal growing sites to determine they are operating under the requirements imposed by their permits"; "Information collected during surveillance activities will be shared with the Cannabis Task Force." [1]
- Aircraft
- "the Sheriff's Office plane operated by the Yolo County Sheriff's Office Aerosquadron," a Cessna 172 [1]
- Funding
- Yolo County Cannabis Task Force funding, with the Sheriff's 2017-18 appropriations increased by $110,000 [1]
- Capabilities stated in the request
- "night vision, high definition video recording, and image stabilization," plus a real-time capability under which "images and video can be broadcast in real time to deputies and investigators on the ground" [1]
- Whether the camera is in service now
- no record in the corpus we fetched mentions the aircraft camera after the December 2017 agenda item [1]
- Flights, missions or hours flown
- not in any record we fetched
- Governing policy
- we did not find a policy for the aircraft camera in the records we fetched, and the office's military equipment annual report covers other equipment
How it happened
- Procurement
Board item seeks funding for an airplane-mounted camera
The Sheriff-Coroner's item asks the Board to "Authorize the use of Yolo County Cannabis Task Force funding to purchase an airplane-mounted camera system to be installed on the Sheriff's Office plane operated by the Yolo County Sheriff's Office Aerosquadron; and Adopt budget resolution increasing the Sheriff's appropriations for 2017-18 by $110,000." [1]
What the department asked for
The Sheriff-Coroner’s agenda item of December 12, 2017 asked the Board of Supervisors to “Authorize the use of Yolo County Cannabis Task Force funding to purchase an airplane-mounted camera system to be installed on the Sheriff’s Office plane operated by the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office Aerosquadron; and Adopt budget resolution increasing the Sheriff’s appropriations for 2017-18 by $110,000.” The item describes an “Epsilon 140 camera system, mounted directly onto the airplane, with the capability for night vision, high definition video recording, and image stabilization,” and adds that “Another benefit of this system is it’s real-time capability: images and video can be broadcast in real time to deputies and investigators on the ground.”[1]
The item explains the purpose. “The Yolo County Sheriff’s Aerosquadron has historically performed aerial surveillance on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office, passing this information on to the Yolo County Narcotics Enforcement Team.” With cannabis legalized, “the Sheriff’s Office wishes to continue monitoring legal growing sites to determine they are operating under the requirements imposed by their permits,” and “Information collected during surveillance activities will be shared with the Cannabis Task Force.” The camera “will be mounted to the outside of the Aerosquadron’s Cessna 172,” and “A competitive bid process was not applied when sourcing pricing for the Epsilon 140”; “The closest vendor of this camera system to the area is SkyIMD located in Richmond, California.”[1]
The Board’s agenda pages record what an office asked for, not how the Board voted. This one is a request, and it is the only document about the aircraft camera in the records we fetched, which is why this page’s status is proposed.
What it does not establish
The item names a camera model, a vendor, a funding source and a purpose. It does not say how often the aircraft flies or under what written policy. Nothing in the corpus we fetched mentions the camera after December 2017, so we cannot say whether it was installed, whether it is still in service, or what happens to the footage it records. A real-time feed to deputies on the ground is a capability the item claims; no record we read describes how it has been used.
Questions
- What was the camera for?
- The agenda item describes an "Epsilon 140 camera system, mounted directly onto the airplane, with the capability for night vision, high definition video recording, and image stabilization." It says images and video "can be broadcast in real time to deputies and investigators on the ground." [1]
- Who paid for it?
- The item asks the Board to use Yolo County Cannabis Task Force funding and to increase the Sheriff's 2017-18 appropriations by $110,000. [1]
- Is the camera still flying?
- We cannot say. No record in the corpus we fetched mentions the aircraft camera after the December 2017 item, and we did not find flight logs, a policy or a later budget line for it. [1]
What we do not know
- Whether the aircraft and its camera are still in service.
- How often the aircraft flies, for what purposes, and whether mission or flight logs exist.
- What policy governs recording from the aircraft, and how long footage is kept.
- Whether the aircraft's video feeds any other county system.
What you can do
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Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Yolo County.
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