- December 12, 2025
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As the crowd heads toward the exits following an appearance by Dr. Anthony Fauci at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, a woman hands an employee what appears to be a suspicious package.
Alerted to the incident, an analyst in the Sarasota Police Department’s Real-Time Operations Center monitoring live security feeds within the building immediately contacts officers on the scene with a description of the subject made possible by the video.
When confronted outside the building, the subject explains the item was an envelope she found in the parking lot and she turned it in.
There was no harm or criminal intent, but the incident serves as a real-world example of how the SPD’s developing SRQ City View program can identify threats and shave critical minutes — if not days or even weeks — of response time to solve, and perhaps prevent, threats to public safety.
In association with its vendor Flock Safety, the SPD has introduced an opportunity for businesses and residents to partner with the department to provide live access to businesses’ selected security camera. Also, via registration to the program SPD can readily identify residents who are willing to provide access to their recorded security footage, which must still be manually retrieved by investigators but only after being provided permission.
Rather than relying on often flawed eyewitness and second-hand accounts, implementing SRQ City View makes available live or immediately available footage to responding officers and investigators.
“We want to see it ourselves, and that way we're more accurate when calling it out to officers and we can get to it quicker than having to wait a couple of days to retrieve the video,” said John Lake, who retired from SPD as a detective in 2023 and quickly returned to manage the Real-Time Operations Center.
This isn’t Big Brother watching the comings and goings of everyone near a camera, nor is it tapping into private property security video, said Lake. “We have too many other things to deal with,” he said.
Rather, according to SPD’s description of the program, “Registering your cameras does not give officers continuous live access. It places a secure pin on a map with your contact information. If a crime or emergency happens near your registered camera, officers can quickly reach out to request video footage. This process saves valuable time and allows officers to act more effectively when it matters most.”
The SRQ City View program is the latest high-tech tool for the SPD’s Real-Time Operations Center, internally referred to as the ROC. Although still being built out in a former community room at SPD headquarters, the facility is fully operational. At a cost of $690,581 for the first two phases, the ROC integrates the department’s red light camera, license plate readers, school zone speed cameras, drone deployment and gunshot detection nodes into — as its name suggests — real-time response.
The single largest deployment of the program to date is at the Sarasota County Fairgrounds, where SPD has access to 57 of the more than 60 cameras within and around the property at Fruitville Road and South Tuttle Avenue. Until recently, the fairgrounds’ cameras only recorded footage made available, if needed, for review.
No longer with SRQ City View.
“They brought in their equipment, hooked it up, and we gave them access to all of our gates and most of our public-facing cameras,” said Sarasota County Agricultural Fair Association President and CEO Rory Martin. “We don't always watch our cameras. We don't have the personnel to sit there, but when we have a high-profile event, they're able to monitor our cameras and ascertain if there are any threats.”
He said he considers the SPD access to fairgrounds cameras a valuable asset to security within the property, but it has yielded results on its perimeter as well.
Recently, Martin said, the neighboring Boys and Girls Club building had $20,000 in roofing materials stolen from its property. The fairgrounds cameras captured images of the vehicle the thieves arrived in, the box truck that arrived shortly thereafter and then the lookout and getaway vehicle at the conclusion of the heist. From there, SPD’s network of license plate readers tracked the direction of travel on Lockwood Ridge Road, leading to the apprehension of the building material bandits.
“It gives me peace of mind partnering with law enforcement,” Martin said. “When we have high-profile events, especially with elected officials, knowing that they're watching, they can quickly respond and even bring their drone units. They're good partners to have.”
For businesses, participation in the program comes at a nominal cost. There is a one-time fee of $250 to integrate their cameras with the ROC and an ongoing cost of $300 per year for up to eight cameras.
To offset the cost of participation for downtown businesses, the Downtown Improvement District Board of Directors this week approved $10,000 for $500 rebates to a maximum of 20 applications. Depending on the success of the pilot program, the board will consider another $10,000 in its next budget cycle.
“That is just putting more cameras downtown that we'll have access to because on Fridays and Saturdays, that's the busiest place in town at night,” said Officer David Kennedy, whose last assignment prior to retirement is building out the ROC.
Although the ROC already monitors a network of 27 red light cameras (with three more pending), 22 school zone cameras, 80 license plate readers and 65 gunshot detectors throughout the city, the SPD is focusing the SRQ City View program on downtown. The voluntary collaboration includes businesses and condominium towers that use security cameras within and outside their venues.
The program has already secured one downtown condominium association and is engaged in dialogue with others, where those cameras generally point externally to view street activity. The ability to access cameras in a wide area around the downtown towers deemed critical to the mission.
Any registered business camera shows up on the ROC’s screens as a pin. When an incident occurs within or near a location, a simple click on the pin provides live access to the camera for real-time monitoring of any situation. Officers can also access cameras inside businesses for live feeds or immediate video playback, saving valuable time and providing valuable intel before they arrive.
“If we're in the ROC and something happens, we can immediately react to it,” Lake said. “We’re not going to be Big Brother. With a condo, we’re not going to be pulling up their camera every day wondering who's coming or going. We don't care. But if we hear a call on the radio, we immediately go to that camera. It's not anything different than we're doing right now if we hear a crash happened at an intersection. We’re on that camera system looking at that crash before the officer even shows up to the scene.”
Real-time access to business' live video feed is essential to program success.
“As we have positive outcomes, then word-of-mouth grows and we will then promote those on our social media. Then we will go from zero miles an hour to 200 miles an hour,” said Police Chief Rex Troche, adding that each camera voluntarily added to the network is one less camera the city will have to install and, as technology changes, replace.
“It's going to be a force multiplier in the city,” Troche said. “We have the ability to tap into cameras of private citizens and businesses, and as they upgrade their technology, we're automatically in that loop. From an expense standpoint, this is a game-changer for law enforcement because we're not putting that expense on the citizens or the businesses.”
This story was updated to clarify that live video remote access is not available for registered residential security cameras, but footage may be provided with the owners' permission.
