Sergeant Doug Light
Sometimes be five, six, seven days, and then someone finally calls and be like, you know, hey, I saw this suspicious person or this suspicious vehicle or, you know, and by that time, if there's no footage or anything else, and it's really hard for us at that point to determine if there was any crimes committed.

Laura Seney
Welcome to Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect. Kosciusko Connect is a subsidiary of Kosciusko REMC. Since 2021, we have been providing fast, reliable fiber to the home internet service to rural portions of Northern Indiana. On Connected Conversations, we talk about fiber internet, technology, community, and how to navigate the digital world in which we live. I am your host, Laura Seney. Thank you for connecting with us today.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Connected Conversations. Today we are going to be talking to local law enforcement here in Kosciusko County about the value of home security cameras. Kosciusko Connect now offers Arlo security camera packages and installation along with our internet services. Our guest today is Sergeant Doug Light with the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department.

Good morning. How are you doing today?

Sergeant Doug Light
We are doing very well.

Laura Seney
Great to hear. Thank you for coming and talking to us today. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah. Thank you. So my official title is Public Information Officer. So I deal with media, anything that involves a news release or speaking with the media. Also in charge of our school resource officers, and supervise for them. Our quartermaster. It's my responsibility to keep everybody looking sharp and in uniform. And, I always joke that the sheriff always has a right hand man. So I always say that I'm kind of like the pinky toe on his left foot. So not quite his right hand man, but I do answer to him and do a lot of things that, he needs done as well. So, but yeah. Been in law enforcement for about 30 years and yeah, we're, almost nearing the end of my career. See how it goes.

Laura Seney
30 years is a long time for sure.

Sergeant Doug Light
Yes it is.

Laura Seney
Yes. Thank you for your serving our community in that way for 30 years. Can you give us the highlights of what the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department does in our community on a day to day basis?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah. So, a lot of things that, people don't realize is really how big of an operation the sheriff's department is. This sheriff's office alone has about 130 employees. Most people would just assume that they see us driving around, you know, the patrol units. And that is a big part of it. But we also manage the jail. So our jail can, at a high capacity, hold 305 inmates. We're really down quite a bit. So we hover between probably 170 and 180, our inmate population. We also have work release. Usually has about 75 out of work release. We also do all civil processing. Oh yeah. Big operation 24 seven 365 out doing our thing. So busy, busy.

Laura Seney
It definitely sounds like you guys stay busy. What would you say out of each of those branches that you listed, what is like the most challenging aspect of what you guys do?

Sergeant Doug Light
There is no pause button for us, so it doesn't matter what's happening, what's going on. It is full steam ahead every day and just to manage everything, which is ultimately the sheriff's responsibility. But, you know, sometimes sit back and just watch it happen. And it is really neat to see just how you can have something that involves so many people keeping it moving forward on a daily basis, and it takes a great team of people to do that. I mean, we can be really any prouder than all our employees and what they do every day to make it happen.

Laura Seney
That's amazing. What are some of the most common security concerns homeowners in our community face from your perspective?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's just protecting their property. You know, so probably some of the most common things, probably theft and burglaries, theft, criminal mischiefs, probably some residential entry stuff in there. Really just. Yeah. So just really protecting what is theirs, I think is probably the most common.

Laura Seney
That makes sense. From your experience, how do you home security cameras help law enforcement in solving crimes? Do they help?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if you look back when I started in 1995, I mean, we didn't even have cell phones yet. That was, you know, just on the cutting edge of technology. And, you know, here we are, 2025. We have in-car computers, and we have a state of the art 911 dispatch center that everything is almost paperless now. Yeah. So when we're, you know, talking about home security and technology, I mean, it's a huge help because, you know, before it was it was eyewitnesses, right. Interviewing people. What did you see? What happened? What went on? Now, we're able to really capture that or so now, you know, on some type of a security system platform. So yeah. Very helpful. Gives you that time stamp. I mean, some of them are live feeds now, a lot of them. So it that live action of what's going on and what occurred. So definitely very helpful. One of the big things now that we see a lot of are the doorbell cameras people have. So, you know, we get something in a in a neighborhood, some type of crime. And you know, that's one of the first things we look for. Talk with the victims, maybe some other people. But then we're also kind of looking house to house to see who may or may not have had a doorbell camera. Right. I may have just caught something that can help us. So, yeah, it's, it's really, really evolved over the years, that's for sure.

Laura Seney
Yeah, I'm sure over the course of 30 years, the advancement in technology has been crazy to watch. What are some of the most common crimes that home security cameras help deter?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah, I think it just goes back to probably the theft and the burglaries and vandalism. That's the biggest things, I think. The camera itself, you know, you want that to be the deterrent, right? People see the camera. So yeah, I mean those are probably the big things, but they may capture a vehicle accident that occurred on a road, or they may capture, something that could be domestic violence or something else that occurred as well. So it's a pretty broad thing.

Laura Seney
Yeah. So even though you have a home security camera to protect your house, you can also provide protection to those surrounding you, your neighbors and stuff, and even on the road, because your cameras can catch things that are going on all around in the area.

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah, absolutely.

Laura Seney
Which is pretty incredible. How do security cameras compare to other home security measures like alarm systems or neighborhood watch programs?

Sergeant Doug Light
Well, I really think they go hand in hand. I don't think you really put one over the other. I think they all complement each other. If you live in a subdivision or neighborhood, and I think it's important to communicate with your neighbors. It's everybody looking out for each other, you know, same with door alarms as well. You know, the video aspect on top of it. So I don't think one's probably more important than the other, but I do really think that they'll work hand in hand with each other.

Laura Seney
That makes sense. How should homeowners handle footage that captures potential criminal activity?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah, and I'm sure there's probably a lot of different systems out there. So the first thing you probably want to look at is whatever system you have, how long will it store footage. You know, do you have a backup? Is it on a cloud? Can you edit it? Especially in this video age, the smaller the file that you can send us is better for us just for the storage aspect of it. So if you're able to have the ability to edit the video it would be helpful. So catching you know, maybe prior to it happening I'll see what happened, and then a little bit after. You know if you're able to cut that down, instead of just saying, oh, well I can only send you the last hour. Well, we don't want to look through 57 minutes of nothing to get to the three minute important part. So yeah, if you have the ability to edit it again, just make sure you have a backup. Make sure you know how long it'll store. Oh that's pretty helpful. That way when you send us, whether you do it on a thumb drive or send it to us via email to the detectives or investigators, it's just easier for us to manage that way.

Laura Seney
That makes sense. You don't want to have to dig through three hours of footage to find the three seconds that you need. How has technology changed the way law enforcement approaches home security? And you've talked about this a little bit already.

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah, it's easy with technology to maybe think it makes our job easier, but I think at the end of the day, we don't want to really give up on doing just good old fashioned police work. All this stuff is very helpful to us, but at the end of the day, we still need those physical pieces of evidence that are just as important as, you know, a piece of video footage. So for us to still walk around the house, if you look for a footprint, to dust for fingerprints, and to look for any type of other physical evidence, I think it's just as important is video part of it. But the video part of it is very helpful as well, because you can get that vehicle description or that closing description or the gender or the height, you know, all that's important as well. But to also to interview a witness. Take that step as well as important. So yeah, just finding that balance between, you know, being able to utilize the technology but just still doing good police work and it goes hand in hand.

Laura Seney
Yeah. Cameras aren't a replacement for police work, but they aid a lot.

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah for sure

Laura Seney
For sure. Out of curiosity, have you had any run ins or do you have any fears as AI evolves and people's ability to manipulate footage and stuff increases. Do you see that as a complication in the future? Or is manipulated footage something you can still easily call out and tell what it is?

Sergeant Doug Light
That is a great question. I don't know that I have the best answer for you. I can't give you any specifics on any situations where we've had anything like that. Not to say that that couldn't be some day, you know, for everything that could be used for good somehow people tend to use it for bad. So the likelihood of what you just explained happening is probably going to happen. And it kind of always seems like things trend, whether they're scams or drug related trends or, you know, something like you described here with AI, it seems like initially we're kind of behind and there's, there's kind of like this a little bit of a learning curve, you know, the ability for us to catch up to it a little bit in law enforcement. But I would be silly to sit here and say that we're not probably not going to experience that either.

Laura Seney
That makes sense. Technology changing and AI evolving is changing stuff for everyone and every single career path and industry. So it makes sense it would affect yours as well. What advice would you give to someone considering investing in a security camera system for their home?

Sergeant Doug Light
Number one, just do your research. Just here in the county, we have some really good businesses that do home security. To me, those are the experts and I would really lean on them. You know, it's easy to be able to jump on internet and know, hey, I can get a six piece security system. And it says that I can install it myself. And, you know, life will be good and maybe you can. Maybe you're really good at that. But yeah, I would look at, really leaning on the professionals because they're going to know really about camera placement. They're going to understand we talked about the storage and editing and, you know, if they're using cloud storage for people kind of like me that struggle with that, you know, that's the simpler it can be for those purposes, the better. So yeah, just do your homework, see what other people are using. But my biggest thing with me and is sometimes we get we get caught up in price. And I'm not saying that the stuff off the internet is bad, but to me I would, I would probably pay a little bit more to have somebody professional really looking at my property. That way I can explain to them what it'll make me comfortable, you know, and they can maybe put a package together that way.

Laura Seney
Yeah, and that's what we try to provide at Kosciusko Connect is when people buy our security camera packages, we send someone out to install those cameras for them and talk to them about how it works, and talk to them about where they want their cameras, and what's important for them to see and protect. And with Arlo, all the footage is stored for 30 days, so you have 30 days worth of footage stored on the cloud at all times that you can access. You can download easily. So and we've definitely we've heard from some of our customers, you know, they've tried before to buy their own security cameras and thinking installation would be easy and it wasn't so easy. And that turned into a huge obstacle. So having someone like a professional from Kosciusko Connect, come out and install those cameras really helps. And you can really make sure everything is set up correctly in the way you want. So we have seen that on our side of things to. What are common mistakes that people make when it comes to home security, whether that be cameras or other things?

Sergeant Doug Light
Well, number one, it's always just back to lock in your doors and windows. And I mean, that's step number one. If you have to park your car outside again, just lock your car. Sometimes I think we almost make it too easy for the criminals, and, we don't lock things up. One thing that I did last fall at my property was I contacted KREMC, and I said, hey, you guys put these security lights up, and they're like, yeah. And, very helpful. They came out, put security light, I think it's between $8 or $9 a month at the end of my driveway, and it just lights up that portion of my property. So again, good lighting is important. You know, whether you want to use your lights to stay on or dusk to dawn or motion sensor. But yeah, just having good lighting, keeping things locked up. Probably one of the biggest things is sometimes people wait, something suspicious happens, or they see something. You know, because we're all creatures of habit. So no matter where you live, you know everything really almost on a pattern. Like every day I drive to work as I take sometimes that same route. I just always run into the same cars or always run into the same school bus. So we know what belongs and what doesn't belong. If something doesn't belong, gotta let us know, right? And sometimes before five, six, seven days and then someone will finally call us and be like, you know, hey, I saw this suspicious person or this suspicious vehicle or, you know, and by that time, if there's no footage or anything else, and it's really hard for us at that point to determine if there was any crimes committed. So if you see something, just call. I think sometimes people think it's a bother, but it's not. And that's what really what we're here for. Right. So you can call any time of day, day or night and some suspicious. And you know, if it's just us doing a drive by or checking the area or whatever, that's what we're here for. So, you know, a lot of times people just wait too long. So yeah, we urge them to call and, you know, to let us know, you know, even if you on vacation all in to dispatch. Hey, we're going to be out of town from this date to this date. If you have officers drive by, we're happy to do that.

Laura Seney
That's great to hear that you guys offer that, because I think a lot of people find that helpful. What else do you wish people in the community knew about the sheriff's department?

Sergeant Doug Light
Well, you know, we since, Sheriff Smith got elected, we've really trained to be approachable. We do a lot of community events. He has an open door policy. He's really tried to engage with the public in the community, you know. And, we really want people not to hesitate to contact us. Good, bad, and indifferent, you know, with the concerns and really by us doing a lot of these public appearances gives people that opportunity to come up to us. And, you know, we just we were out at the Home and Garden Show where I saw you and, you know, and it's just nice to talk to people. And we've probably had 3 or 4 people that, you know, came up and kind of had a speeding concern. And in certain areas of the county. And so I think it sometimes a little bit easier for them to approach this place like that and coming into the actual sheriff's office. But yeah, just to talk to them and get some information and get some feedback, listening to what they have to say, that's really what it's all about. But we have some tremendous men and women that do a phenomenal job every day at the sheriff's office from our dispatchers, who are really the true first responders. You know, they're the ones that are, you know, taking that initial call. Everybody plays such an important role to really make it work, you know, day in and day out. So we are here to serve the public. And I think we need to reach out to us. Please do. Every day is different, but it doesn't stop. You know, right now we probably average 15, 1600 calls a month.

Laura Seney
Wow.

Sergeant Doug Light
And, in the summertime, really from Memorial Day to Labor Day is when it's really busy and we'll get up over 2000 calls a month.

Laura Seney
That's a lot of calls to handle.

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah. But, great agencies, great officers throughout the county, work well with all of them. They help us, we help them. We have a big county, 540mi² of county to cover. It's a lot, but somehow we get it done.

Laura Seney
Yes. And you do a very good job of it. Do you have a favorite community event or community outreach activity that you guys do?

Sergeant Doug Light
Yeah we do so many. Probably one that's near and dear to my heart is always in September. I don't know the exact date, but it's Family Safety Day in Warsaw. Wayne Township Fire Department is the organizer of the event, and that's always one of my favorites down at Central Park. And, but we do we do a lot of parades. You know, we're always out of our county fair. Yeah, we really try to, to really just do a lot of events and get out there and engage with the community.

Laura Seney
That's awesome. Yeah, it's great that you guys are so involved in our community. We really appreciate what the sheriff's office does for our community. Your team obviously is doing a fantastic job and they're managing quite a lot. So thank you for coming out and talking to us today, and I hope that you have a good rest of your day.

Sergeant Doug Light
I will you too. Thanks for having me.

Laura Seney
If you would like to learn more about Arlo security cameras, or have Arlo cameras installed by Kosciusko Connect. Call (574) 269-0327 and our Kosciusko Connect team will be happy to assist you. You have been listening to Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect. From all of us at Kosciusko Connect, thank you for connecting with us today.