Someone apparently hacked into the Pulaski County Justice Center’s surveillance cameras. Sheriff Jeff Richwine says it happened over the weekend. “We’ve had somebody hack into our cameras, and they’re turning our cameras off in the jail,” he told the county council Monday.
He said that could be a potential liability. “If somebody would’ve got hurt in that jail or said they slipped and we don’t have video of it and we say, ‘Some bozo hacked in, turned our cameras off,’ then we’re in trouble. They’re probably going to win that suit.”
Richwine said the cameras were down for three or four hours, but there have been issues on and off for the past couple weeks. They’re back up now, but he said the remote access feature had to be shut off for the time-being, to prevent the issue from happening again, “But I mean that’s a valuable tool, too. If something ever happened there, it would be nice for people to have access to remote in and be able to see the cameras inside the jail, if for some reason, there’s a jail break and they take over the place or whatever, we could still remote in and see what’s going on there. But we’ve turned all that off right now.”
The sheriff’s concern was how to handle these kinds of technology emergencies in the future. He explained that the jail commander, as well as support staff from the company supplying the cameras, were called in to fix the problem. However, they needed help from County IT Director Matt Voltz, but he was also trying to deal with other problems at the time. Richwine added that there are also some more complicated items that Voltz may not know how to fix.
IT Consultant Willie DeGroot is available to help on an as-needed basis in those situations, but who’s allowed to contact him was not entirely clear. Council member Ken Boswell said it’s ultimately up to Richwine and Voltz. “He knows if it’s better for him to serve his time fixing that courthouse and we bring somebody else in that can resolve the problem you need quicker,” Boswell said. “That’s something that you guys need to work out. You know, it’s going to happen.”
The camera issues are just the latest in a series of technology issues facing the Pulaski County Justice Center in recent months. The county has also been dealing with aging door control and fire alarm systems.
