“It is the wave of the future,” said Chief Joe Morbitzer, head of the Westerville Police Department in the Columbus area and president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police.
The Monroe Police Department has spent the past two years testing the devices, and for the past month have had officers try out various types of body cameras.
“We’ve tested other body cameras in the past, but they were not made for police duty and were not reliable,” said Monroe police Lt. Brian Curlis. “We’re looking for a system that we can use on anybody … This is an opportunity to possibly outfit our patrol officers.”
As new technologies evolved, so have the newer body cameras, according to Curlis.
The body cameras currently being tested are collar- and chest-mounted AXON cameras made by Taser International, and they are more rugged than earlier models police looked at, he said. The department has been on a waiting list since last April for the test models, which were received at no cost to the department.
“It increases accountability to the citizens as we want to show them we’re doing a good job … It also keeps people in check as they behave differently when they are being recorded,” Curlis said.
Those are the reasons behind growing support for officers wearing the devices at all times. Officers in Ferguson, Mo., began wearing them Aug. 30, about three weeks after the shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old man in an encounter with police. About 50 cameras were donated by two private companies to the Ferguson Police Department.
For the last month, some Cincinnati officers have worn body cameras as part of Cincinnati Police Department pilot program to determine how useful the cameras are in investigations. Last week, the video taken from a camera clipped to an officer’s uniform offered irrefutable evidence that officers were justified when they shot and killed a man in West Price Hill.
“It’s just one more piece of irrefutable evidence that we can use,” Executive Assistant Chief Paul Humphries told our news partner WCPO 9 On Your Side. “It’s one more tool we can use to corroborate witness and officer statements about what really happened.”
Can new technology help?
Bitterly differing accounts of what happened in recent police-involved shootings have left citizens calling for video evidence.
In Beavercreek last month, police shot a Walmart shopper, John Crawford III, after a 911 caller said he was loading a rifle with ammunition and waving the gun at fellow shoppers. The gun turned out to be an air-powered BB gun.
Beavercreek police said the 22-year-old Fairfield man twice disobeyed commands before he was shot.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine showed Crawford family members and attorneys part of Walmart store surveillance footage from the evening of the shooting. Crawford’s father, John Crawford Jr., and the family attorney, Michael Wright, left that viewing adamant that Crawford III threatened nobody and had not been given time to respond to police commands before he was shot.
Since then, there have been calls for DeWine to release the Walmart video, even ahead of a special grand jury scheduled to convene Monday in Xenia at Greene County Common Pleas Court.
Five days after Crawford was killed by police, events erupted in Ferguson, after police shot an unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. That shooting ignited days of violent protests. The St. Louis County prosecutor has convened a grand jury to hear evidence in the case and to decide whether to indict Wilson in the shooting.
Since Brown’s death, Steve Lovell, president of Seattle-based VIEVU, said his company has seen more information downloads and more interest in his product, which he added is the first to market wearable cameras for law enforcement.
The company doesn’t make “covert cameras,” Lovell said. VIEVU borders its camera lenses with a prominent green line, so police and citizens know they are being recorded.
“It’s just a good trust and transparency,” he said.
Cameras affect behavior on both sides of the lens, Lovell said. Both police and citizens tend to behave better when they understand their actions and words are being recorded — in high definition.
About 3,900 agencies — police departments, campus safety departments, sheriff’s offices, prisons, even NASA — in the United States are using VIEVU cameras, Lovell said. The device is for anyone who needs to “document their (visual) data,” he said.
The cameras affect not just street interactions but evidence collection and courtroom presentation. “From an officer’s chest to the courtroom,” is how Lovell put it.
Once the camera has been assigned to a data base, it can only be uploaded in that database, Lovell. A VIEVU camera found by a civilian on a street will be of no use to anyone else, he said.
And users can’t delete video, he added. “It’s got a really high safeguard.”
Body cameras have pros and cons
Curlis said some of the body cameras previously tested would cut off as officers talked to people and had other malfunctions such as being unable to capture images in low-light situations.
The AXON body cameras are lightweight, can function in low-light situations, video is easily downloadable, they have a longer battery life, comes with the software, and cannot be erased by the officer, he said. Unlike cruiser cameras that captures video when the light bar and/or siren is activated, the officer has to manually start a body camera.
Curlis also said other concerns with these devices, as body movements such as using a weapon, looking around the corner in or out of building or in a struggle with a suspect, the camera may not see everything the officer does.
While the cost of these devices are $399 for a chest-mounted camera to $499 for a collar mounted camera, they are less than the $5,000 to $10,000 for a cruiser camera. However, the costs of storage, either with servers or the virtually through the cloud, could be a large financial hurdle to overcome. In addition, police officials say there are privacy issues that need to be addressed — footage becomes investigative, trial or public records — and departments would need to establish or update camera usage policies.
“It’s a way to protect officers and citizens,” said Monroe City Manager William Brock. “We have cruiser cameras and this would be an easy way to verify facts.”
Brock said police were happy to be proactive and look at the new technology. He said the city is looking at building the purchase of body cameras into the 2015 budget funds. In addition, he wants to make sure the policy manual reflects the latest changes in using this technology.
He said the evolving technology requires the city to contract with a company that specializes in police policies that are state-specific and prepared by legal and law enforcement specialists who constantly monitor court decisions across the nation.
Brock said the city could consider making the purchase for it’s 27 police officers as it develops its budget for 2015.
At a recent council meeting, Monroe Councilman Steve Black said, “I think it would be a great tool for the city. Complaints would drop and there would fewer cases of assaults on cops.”
Councilwoman Lora Stillman agreed with Black, saying, “It would make a big difference in court.”
While Monroe is currently looking at the technology, Hamilton police Chief Scott Scrimizzi said in an email, that his department has had several discussions over the past few years about using body cameras, and noted that there are issues with both the current cruiser and body camera technologies.
“We are very close to having all of our front-line cruisers equipped with in-car cameras,” he said in his email. “These cameras are very expensive, in the neighborhood of $10,000 per unit. The body cameras are much more cost effective, around $1,000 per unit, but then there is the added cost of storing the video, etc. There are also some policy issues with regards to privacy in private space.”
Among privacy concerns are video recordings of searches of a home, building or vehicle, in which a person captured in the footage may have nothing to do with the incident.
Scrimizzi believes officers have embraced the cameras, and while the vast majority of times officers do the right thing, the cameras will protect them from false complaints.
“I believe that complaints against officers across the country will go down” he said. “I also believe that in the next five to six years most police agencies will have some type of body worn device.”
Middletown police Chief David VanAresdale said his department has also taken a look at utilizing body cameras in the past.
“The dash cams work better for us because of our limited budget,” he said. “But it’s not off the table in the future.”
Chief John McCandless of the Miami University police, said they also have been looking at body cameras just as Monroe has. McCandless said currently the price for the cameras “are all over the place from $89 to $1,000 each.”
“It can be a great tool and in five to seven years, there will be more police departments than not using body cameras,” he said. “It keeps everybody on the up and up.”
Clark County sheriff’s deputies have been using them for more than a year, according to Lt. Dustin White.
“The officers who have the in-car cameras or the body cameras know immediately when they get out of that car that they are being watched,” White said. “And they know that this (video) is going to be called up to be reviewed later.”
That holds officers to a higher standard and requires them to respond in a more professional manner, he added.
Although use of the devices are not required, many of the deputies like to use the cameras because of the security they offer in the case of an investigation into conduct, White said.
“On face value, it’s OK,” said Gary Hines, president of the Hamilton-Fairfield-West Chester NAACP unit. “But this needs to have a much broader discussion within the community.”
Hines said training is going to be very important, as the cameras depend on the officer to make it work, and addressing the various policy issues.
Dora Bronston, president of the Middletown NAACP unit and a member of Middletown City Council, said the use of body cameras could provide protection for both the officer and the suspects. She added that it would provide a record of what transpired during an incident.
“As long as people can see them, it could increase trust and credibility,” she said.
Bronston said City Council recently approved the purchase of cruiser cameras, and said if money is available in the budget for body cameras, that could be good as well.
Staff writers Thomas Gnau, Alison Wichie and Lot Tan contributed to this report.
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