WAGONER COUNTY, Okla. — The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office launched, SafeCam, on its website.
The new feature allows the sheriff’s office to use people’s surveillance cameras in investigations. If you participate in the program and there is a crime in your area, the sheriff’s office can request video from personal surveillance cameras to help with investigations.
Mackenzie Mathews is a customer-favorite employee at Smokin' Sisters BBQ in Wagoner, but like most people in 2023, trusting everyone that walks through the door is not always the case. Hence the reason why the restaurant has security cameras front and center.
“God forbid, we get robbed, or we get something," Matthews said.
It’s why Wagoner County Sheriff Chris Elliott says if you don’t have cameras at your home or business, you need them.
“It doesn’t tell the complete picture," Elliott said referring to the cameras. "But it tells a lot of the picture when you sit down and look at it.”
Now he’s taking it a step further allowing home and business owners to register their cameras voluntarily with the sheriff’s office for free to build a database of camera locations.
It would allow investigators to call Wagoner County residents in its camera database instead of having to go door-to-door and ask surveillance camera owners if they could see their footage to investigate crimes.
Many neighborhood cameras are also doorbells. They capture movement, and it’s exactly what the sheriff’s office would want to see if there was a crime nearby.
Matthews says it’s a partnership she’d be proud to be a part of.
“Being able to just release these (surveillance cameras) and having access to them would benefit us and the community," Matthews said.
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