Sheriff gets grant for video gear

WARREN — The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for a $13,000 video surveillance system.

Chief Deputy Ernie Cook said the state-of-the-art system includes a laptop computer with split-screen capability that links with up to four cameras, including ones with zoom, day and night, analog and digital capabilities.

The system comes with one day/night long-range camera and two black and white “lipstick” cameras that are small enough to fit into clothing, Cook said.

“It is James Bond,” Cook said, explaining that the lipstick cameras are not actually shaped like a lipstick but are meant to be hidden.

The equipment will be available to the Trumbull, Ashtabula and Geauga Counties Law Enforcement Task Force, the sheriff’s department and any other police department in the county that needs it, Cook said.

Such equipment is sometimes useful in the event of a threat to national security, such as a threat to destroy a dam, he said.

Installing cameras can provide a way to monitor activity when the manpower is not available to do it in person, Cook said.

The county’s application was bolstered by the county’s participation in TAG because it is a multicounty effort, Cook noted.

Employees will have to be sent for training before the system can be used, he said.