Police Chief Anderson Provides Update on Camera at Wrentham Village Premium Outlets

After being threaten with the cancellation of Midnight Madness in October, Wrentham Village Premium Outlets seems to be holding up their end of the deal to install 10-security camera in order to avoid the Planning Board canceling the event.

In his latest update to the Planning Board during the continued public hearing concerning the Black Friday event, Police Chief James Anderson reported that he has met with the mall's electrician, the mall’s technology consultant, and the camera vendor to pick the cameras and decide where they should go.

The spots for the cameras have been picked and Chief Anderson recently said that the cameras have been installed and they will be tested tomorrow.

While the town’s dispatcher will be able to see the mall’s cameras from the public safety building, that ability will not be available until February 2013 at the latest due to what mall officials told Anderson was infrastructure issues. In the meantime, the video from the cameras will be stored on a sever in the police’s remote office at the mall where it can also be viewed.

“I accept the fact that we won’t have them for Midnight Madness. The cameras will be up and running for midnight madness. We’ll at least be able to retrieve information from the mall if we need to do so,” Anderson said.

When the town does get the ability to remotely view the cameras, they will do it from a monitor from the mall that will be installed for the dispatcher to view. All 10 cameras will be on display and can be seen at the same time. 

A minor issue that has come up is the type of connection the station will get. While mall officials assure Anderson that they will have WI-FI access to the cameras, the department’s IT consultant, Darrell True said that they need a high-speed broadband Internet connection. Mall officials however, assure Anderson that they will have the connection needed to view the cameras remotely.

The town also got a pleasant surprised when the mall decided to purchase four cameras that can pan and zoom plus a license plate reader. Neither the town or Chief Anderson requested both the pan and zoom cameras and reader.

The public hearing for Midnight Madness will remain open until November 21 at 7:00 p.m. in the event there is a need to meet in the days leading up to the event.