INDIANAPOLIS — The City of Indianapolis is offering small businesses a one-time, $2,500 grant to join its b-link camera network. B-link is a collection of personal and business security cameras that give police livestream video access in the event of a nearby crime. The grant money would cover installation and management costs of the cameras.
The program launched in 2019 and so far, 33 businesses throughout the city have signed up. IMPD is asking for more to join.
"When you talk to groups, you talk to businesses, they say, 'We want to help. What can we do?' This is an effort," said IMPD Deputy Chief of Investigations Kendale Adams.
Adams said the cameras have helped make arrests in recent crimes, like the shooting death of a Dutch soldier downtown in August, and the downtown canal shooting in May.
"Public safety, b-link and community cooperation led to the apprehension of suspects that we believe are responsible for shooting four people on the canal," Adams said.
IMPD said during an investigation, without using cameras on the network, getting security camera footage from a business can take upwards of two weeks to get their hands on.
"With b-link, we're able to get that in real time. So if it happens, we're able to access that video, pull it down, get it to our detectives who can then get it out to the field patrol officers to start to identify a suspect, a suspect car or other evidentiary information that would help them solve that case," Adams said. "We're hiring. We need people, but the reality is we're never going to have enough people to address the crime in our community and this is a way we can address crime in all of our neighborhoods, in all of our communities through this program."
From now until March 17, small businesses can take advantage of the grant being offered by the city. They say they have $500,000 in funding to offset costs for small businesses using b-link cameras.
IMPD said there is a monthly cost for the cameras to pay for video storage. They estimate it costs about $20 per camera.