Mesa County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Mesa County.
Technology presence
What these categories mean
- ALPR
- Automated license plate readers (ALPR): camera systems that automatically capture, read, and log vehicle license plates with location and time, producing a searchable record of vehicle movements.
- Fixed cameras & RTCC
- Agency-operated fixed video cameras and the real-time crime centers (RTCC) that aggregate live and recorded feeds for monitoring. Extends the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas, which enumerates real-time crime centers and camera registries but not standalone fixed-camera estates.
- Face recognition
- Software that matches faces in images or video against a reference database to identify or verify individuals.
- Drones / UAS
- Uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), commonly called drones, operated by an agency for overhead observation, imaging, or sensing.
- Gunshot detection
- Networks of acoustic sensors that detect and locate suspected gunfire and alert an agency.
- Body-worn & dashcam
- Officer body-worn and in-vehicle dashboard cameras that record encounters; public access to the footage is frequently restricted.
- Doorbell & camera registry
- Programs that give an agency access to privately owned camera footage: doorbell-camera partnerships, citizen camera registries, and private-camera integration platforms.
- Cell-site simulators
- Devices that mimic cell towers to locate or identify nearby mobile phones. They are often called Stingrays, or IMSI catchers after the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number that identifies each phone on a network. Adjacent: communications surveillance outside the visual/sensor core.
- Predictive policing
- Software that forecasts where crime may occur or who may be involved, to direct policing. Adjacent: analytics rather than a sensing deployment.
- Social-media monitoring
- Tools that collect and analyze public social-media activity for an agency. Adjacent: open-source/communications monitoring outside the visual/sensor core.
The record, by agency
Mesa County Sheriff's Office
The Mesa County Sheriff's Office operates a real-time crime center.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): KJCT-8
The Mesa County Sheriff's Office received a $119,195 grant in 2021 from the Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Justice to buy 85 body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal JusticKDVR
The Mesa County Sheriff's Office operates two Draganfly Innovations drones as of 2009, according to data compiled by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard Collegesheriff.mesacounty.uswww.faa.gov
The Mesa Countty Sheriff's Office maintains a community camera registry via CRIMEWATCH.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): CRIMEWATCH
Grand Junction Police Department
The Grand Junction Police Department operates eight drones. The agency began its drone program in 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Grand Junction Police Department Website
The Grand Junction Police Department has used body-worn cameras since 2019.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of Grand JunctionThe Daily Sentinel
The Grand Junction Police Department scanned 4,860,761 license plates in 2019 using Vigilant Solutions automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
Collbran Marshal's Office
The Collbran Marshal's Office received a $28,995 grant in 2021 from the Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Justice to buy 3 body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal JusticKDVR
De Beque Marshal's Department
The De Beque Marshal's Department received a $35,595 grant in 2021 from the Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Justice to buy 9 body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal JusticKDVR
Fruita Police Department
The Fruita Police Department received a $45,495 grant in 2021 from the Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Justice to buy 18 body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Colorado Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal JusticKDVR
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026