Note: The Lawrence Times runs opinion columns and letters to the Times written by community members with varying perspectives on local issues. These pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Times staff.
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On Nov. 12, 2024, one week after Donald Trump was reelected president, the Lawrence Police Department received unanimous approval from the City Commission for a five-year contract with Axon Enterprises Inc.
The contract covered body-worn cameras, in-car cameras, digital evidence storage, Tasers and a software platform meant to “integrate several information systems within the department.”
Buried in that contract was Fusus, a surveillance company whose CEO has said the goal is to bring “New York-style surveillance systems to thousands of smaller police departments around the U.S.” That includes us.
The Lawrence Police Department on Sunday launched the Fusus-based “Connect Lawrence” program, encouraging residents to register or livestream their security cameras — anything from Ring doorbells to the big ones mounted outside apartment complexes — directly to police.
Related news article:
• Lawrence police program asks residents, businesses to register security cameras for police use, July 21, 2025
A flyer posted to the Lawrence Police Department’s Facebook and Instagram says officers can access these cameras “for proactive monitoring for criminal activity.” That’s not about emergency response. That’s the police deputizing landlords and property owners to help them be on perpetual patrol.
According to a 2023 Thomson Reuters Foundation report, the Fusus platform also integrates with AI tools, license plate readers, gunshot detectors and predictive policing software that can scan entire cities for specific people or vehicles. The infrastructure is already here. It can be expanded without another vote, and rolled out on Instagram any idle Sunday like it’s just some fun new “CopGPT” program.
With federal agencies arbitrarily detaining and deporting community members, ramping up political repression, and cracking down on civil rights, now is not the time for local police to quietly expand surveillance.
Even if camera sharing is “opt-in,” footage doesn’t stop at property lines. These cameras record whatever they’re pointed at: sidewalks, streets, parks, cars, people. And the City of Lawrence has made it clear that it will cooperate with federal enforcement whenever it is deemed lawful.
That’s why it matters that, when San Gabriel, California, adopted the Fusus system in 2021, their police chief told city council he recommended it after seeing it “field-tested” in Minneapolis during the Black Lives Matter protests the year before, a detail highlighted in the Thomson Reuters Foundation Report.
This system doesn’t just enable federal overreach. It also expands local power to target and criminalize our houseless neighbors, especially with the city’s new camping ban set to take effect in just weeks.
We deserve transparency before police get realtime access to our neighborhoods. We deserve public debate before we’re pulled into a nationwide experiment in pre-crime technology. And we deserve better than a surveillance rollout that hides behind the language of community safety.
The city should immediately pause this program — no registration, no streaming, no expansion — until there has been full public disclosure, democratic oversight and a formal vote.
About the writer
Kincaid Dennett (they/them) is a Lawrence-based organizer focused on housing justice, mutual aid and resisting state violence. Their work spans tenant advocacy, cooperative governance, and efforts to advance public transparency and community control. They currently serve as secretary of the board for the Kansas Association for Social Housing.
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Max Kautsch: In loco parentis, or just plain loco – Surveilling Kansas students doesn’t make sense (Column)
“The outcome of the case will depend largely on whether the district can show that implementing software designed to monitor students the way it did was closely related enough to an important government interest — namely, student safety — to justify Gaggle’s intrusion into the students’ lives,” Max Kautsch writes in this Kansas Reflector column.
