High-tech patrol

General Article

Sophisticated video cameras, new patrol car will offer renewed assurances of Center's security commitment

Jack Cusack, Hutch security manager, inspects a state-of-the-art, digital pan/tilt camera recently installed atop the Valley Building. In the background is the loading dock for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance clinic building. Photo by Clay Eals, assisted by Gary Gores

Just as technology drives cancer research, so does it drive the protection of the people and equipment that conduct such research.

On that score, Jack Cusack is a satisfied man. Just a year and a half into his stint as the Hutchinson Center's manager of security, Cusack marvels at the ability of his department to monitor, document and respond to potential misdeeds throughout the 13.5-acre Day Campus.

High on the recent list of advancements in Hutch security is the replacement of 10-year-old cameras with state-of-the-art video surveillance units installed in key spots around the campus.

As well, a state-of-the-art digital-control switch in the security-control room has been installed in the basement of the Hutchinson building. The switch can control all aspects of future technology technology throughout the campus, including closing automated doors and activating motion detectors, video recorders and alarms, thus prompting the dispatch of security officers.

Evening car prowl

Cusack shakes his head in disbelief as he recalls an evening incident a year ago in which a car pulled into the Center's Fairview Building parking lot and the driver quickly broke into a vendor's truck, unloaded equipment and drove away unscathed.

Reviewing a surveillance tape of the incident with an antiquated forward/rewind system similar to that of a home VCR, Cusack and others isolated footage showing the vandalism and burglary, but they were incapable of describing the perpetrator.

"It was so fuzzy that it was like a 16mm movie of your grandparents," he said.

The difference between the old equipment and new cameras, Cusack said, is like night and day.

"Now we can use a speed-frame function that finds action instantly, and we can zoom in with phenomenal clarity," he said. "A camera on top of the new Seattle Cancer Care Alliance building can tell us who's doing what as far away as Burger King."

That's not an insubstantial capability, as the Hutch contracts for ancillary staff parking space across Mercer Street from the fast-food eatery, and Cusack's security department offers 24-hour escort service for Hutch faculty and staff to get from their workplaces to their cars, particularly late at night.

"No one should feel funny about calling for an escort," he said. "That's what we're here for."

Patrol car coming

Escort service is by foot only, but not for long. Shortly after July 1, the security department will lease on an experimental basis a car and prominently adorn it with the Hutch logo and the words "Campus Patrol."

The car will continually circle the Day Campus, paying particular attention to bus stops, parking satellites and below-ground parking garages and responding to calls for escorting faculty and staff to their cars. Bus stops and parking garages can be "spooky" without periodic patrols, Cusack said.

If feedback is positive, he said, the patrol car will become a permanent fixture.

Part of the increased emphasis on security, he said, stems from the opening of the Alliance clinic building and the resulting increase in faculty, staff, patients and volunteers on the Day Campus.

Doubled force

The department's number of security officers has nearly doubled, and attention has been renewed on the need for all Hutch and Alliance staff to wear photo ID badges - and to question anyone unfamiliar and without such a badge who is frequenting areas open only to those with badges.

"It's important not to let people without badges into the side doors of buildings," Cusack said. "It's OK to diplomatically challenge someone without a badge, to ask, "Can I help you? Who are you looking for?" If they do not provide an adequate answer, and even if you see people who just look suspicious, it's best to call security. We can handle it from there."

Such follow-up will include prosecution of anyone coming onto the Day Campus and committing misdeeds, Cusack said.

"Our job is to put things in place that make people feel secure but not make them feel paranoid," he said, ":and we're doing our best to walk that line."

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