Morris police and Grundy 911 dispatch granted camera access for emergency use in Morris High School

The Morris Police Department and Grundy 911 dispatch will now have access to the cameras inside Morris Community High School for use in emergency situations.

Morris Police Chief Alicia Steffes issued a news release Tuesday that surveillance video from inside the high school will be streamed to the Grundy County 911 Center and to the police whenever there is a “pending or imminent safety or security threat on school grounds.”

Superintendent Craig Ortiz said these feeds are only available in case of an emergency.

“Police are not just watching this,” Ortiz said. “They have to have a reason to pull it up. We control the access. We can control it so they can’t rewind unless we give them permission, and we can turn off certain cameras if there was not a reason for police or 911 to be monitoring anything.”

Steffes said in the news release that the district uses a program called Flock OS, the same program that’s used to operate the license plate reading cameras that are placed around Morris and along Interstates 80 and 55. The same program will also be offered to the other schools in Morris.

“The program will increase safety for students, staff and first responders, as it allows the dispatch center, Morris Police officer,s and command personnel to see what is happening on school property in live time during any safety related event,” reads the news release. “First responders will know exactly where the emergency or threat is located and coordinate an appropriate response.”

Ortiz said Morris Community High School has been a pilot school for the program, and it just started rolling out near the end of the school year.

“It’ll be for if something were to happen, if there were a fire or a bad fight, or God forbid, a shooting incident,” Ortiz said. “The nice thing is they can communicate with each other and give door numbers and camera locations and hallway locations.”

Ortiz said the Morris police do occasionally use the high school for training, but there’s been plenty of new officers and not all of them attended Morris High School, so they don’t know the layout of the building.

Police said in the news release that the cameras will be useful in the case of an active shooter, a fire, medical emergencies, traffic issues, intruders, violence between students, thefts, and lost children.

Police said that this same program will also eventually be offered to businesses in Morris, and more information will be made available on that soon.