During a Saturday night football game in September, at a Silicon Valley university , a large group of people in the overflow parking lot became riotous.
When campus police attempted to intervene, the crowd refused to leave and began to throw rocks and bottles at the officers.
While the university has a highly trained police force, their resources were not enough to quell the crowd and the local police department was called in for assistance.
More fights broke out but the crowd eventually left through the three egress gates.
(Learn How the V5 Portable Security Unit can benefit outdoor security for your organization. Courtesy of V5 Systems and YouTube)
Unfortunately, the campus police did not have situational awareness of the crowd via video surveillance, so they did not have any video evidence of the perpetrators when they were throwing the objects or leaving the area.
The facility’s problem is typical of major collegiate and professional sporting complexes.
Parking lots, entries and exits frequently have no video coverage, even though experience shows that such areas are often where excessive alcohol consumption and fighting break out.
The absence of it is almost invariably due to the time-consuming difficulty and the expense of trenching to wire the system to an electrical grid.
Additionally, very few facilities are willing to drill holes or break up the cement or asphalt around the campus.
When the riot occurred, the need for video surveillance became urgent.
The Bay Area university needed it in place far sooner than a traditional security system could be installed. In short, it needed something that redefined the process of installing security.
At the time, the university was in the process of evaluating a revolutionary outdoor, self-powered security solution that can be deployed in under 30 minutes, as well as quickly redeployed as needed.
(Quickly secure any outdoor area, with a wireless, self-powered security solution – in under 30 minutes. Courtesy of V5 Systems and YouTube)
The solution is called the V5 Portable Security Unit (PSU), designed and manufactured by V5 Systems, a leading-edge technology company located in Fremont, CA.
For placement, V5 Systems sought input from the police at the university, knowing the customer understands the terrain and circumstances best.
The company, which has its own highly experienced ex-police officers, sent the team to create a plan that would provide situational awareness of the areas where the crowds had gathered and become unruly.
The goal was to set up surveillance that would obtain HD video of all persons and vehicles coming in and out of the access point to the stadium parking lot.
The self-powered, wireless outdoor security platform from V5 Systems can be deployed faster than all traditional systems, because it does not require costly and time-consuming trenching to connect the units to a power source.
The comparison is stark. The security solution from V5 Systems can be deployed, not in weeks or months, but in under 30 minutes.
As a result, the security devices can be quickly set up to prevent future incidents, such as the riot at the stadium, as well as moved freely to other areas where crowds are anticipated.
The V5 Systems platform is a customizable security solution that enables customers to:
- See – with HD video, 1080p, with IR and starlight technology
- Think – onboard analytics that can perform automated tasks, such as read license plates
- Talk – be alerted in real-time via WiFi, 4G or RF
- Move – quickly be deployed and redeployed as needed in under 30 minutes due to being self-powered and weighing less than 25 lbs
Once the university made the decision to move ahead, implementation proceeded with unprecedented speed, because the devices from V5 Systems are easy to deploy.
When fully configured, each IT-friendly unit is packaged in a compact, lightweight enclosure weighing just 25 pounds.
The V5 Portable Security Units were positioned at the college stadium strategically to detect problems and identify suspects.
Following the installation, there were no more unruly incidents in the parking area during the remainder of the football season or to date.
(Hear from the Hayward Police on the benefits of V5 Systems. Courtesy of V55 Systems and YouTube)
Studies of behavior suggest peoples’ willingness to commit crimes, even when angry and under the influence of alcohol, diminish while they are aware they are under video surveillance.
According to a study by Cornell University, video security resulted in a 51% decrease in crimes committed in parking lots.
Since the initial emergency purchase for the stadium, the university has bought dozens of V5 Systems’ PSUs and deployed them around the campus.
The units have already assisted in the prevention of many crimes, including assault and battery, sexual assault, arson, and bike theft.
Today, V5 Systems revolutionary technology gives educational campuses the ability to be proactive in mitigating crimes and being prepared to prevent them wherever they might occur in the outdoors.
Learn More…
On-the-Move Security System Nets Arrest of Drive-By Shooter (Video)
