In the shadow of civil unrest and protests following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., President Barack Obama is asking Congress for $263 million to put a camera on every law enforcement officer in the country—and local officials are taking notice.
Last week, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to explore the feasibility of equipping every sheriff’s deputy with a body-worn camera capable of recording high-quality video and audio.
“It’s been a difficult year for law enforcement, struggling with what I think are difficult questions surrounding use of force, community-police relations and certainly the questions of race and class,” said Supervisor Joe Simitian, who put forward the proposal.
But body-worn cameras for police officers in Gilroy are nothing new.
In 2010, the Gilroy Police Department received funding from the city’s insurance pool—the Association of Bay Area Governments—to purchase 19 cameras for the department’s traffic division as a way to minimize potential risk and lawsuits. By 2012, every officer was equipped with a VieVu LE2 camera—which come at a cost of roughly $833 each, weigh as much as a deck of cards and are about the size of a cell phone.
VieVu provides about 4,000 law enforcement agencies around the world with body cameras, which can be clipped onto a shirt pocket, and its devices have recorded more than 10 million hours of video, according to company’s website.
GPD Chief Denise Turner said the cameras help provide increased accountability for both law enforcement and members of the public. The cameras serve as an outside party, one that can be counted on as a tool to help tell part of a story, she said.
“People do complain and tell a different story than the officers tell and it’s nice to have that independent, third-party view of what actually happened,” Turner said.
While the story they tell might not always be complete, given that the cameras can only capture what’s in the field of view, the cameras can help protect officers from allegations of misconduct. Overall, Turner said the cameras have helped reduce the number of complaints logged against the department.
Body-worn cameras can help protect officers from accusations of impropriety, and on the other hand, potentially protect members of the public from an overzealous police officer. Overall, Turner said the cameras have helped decrease the number of complaints logged against the department.
“It’s accountability for the officers. They know that every interaction they’re having that’s a police contact is generally being recorded, both video and audio,” Turner said. “It gives transparency to the community about exactly what goes on during a stop and it helps to covers us from any sort of risk or complaint.”
But under what circumstances the cameras are to be used will soon change.
At the program’s outset, officers had discretion about when to turn on the camera—mainly to serve as an independent witness during an arrest or active investigation, for example. In step with a nationwide trend, Gilroy police will be instructed to record as much as possible as often as possible.
“There are situations where a recorder may not be working, or something may happen and an officer is involved in a critical incident and doesn’t have time to flip it on for safety reasons,” Turner said. “We realize there will be situations like that but we’re going to encourage folks to use them as frequently as possible.”
After their shifts each day, officers upload their video recordings to the GPD’s secure servers and earmark any parts that may relate to an active investigation, current case or pending complaint. Unless the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office needs video as part of an evidentiary package for an active case or there’s been an allegation of wrongdoing, Turner said management has no interest in watching it.
“As the management staff, we’re not using it to be a watchdog on our employees. In fact, we don’t have any interest in reviewing it unless the DA needs it for a case or if there’s an allegation of misconduct,” she added. “Once the officers realized we’re not using this as a watchdog tool watching all their interactions, they felt comfortable and they trust us because we haven’t done that.”
Even before the advent of cheap, reliable video cameras that can be worn on a shirt pocket, Gilroy police officers were wearing audio recorders on their duty belts and their patrol cars were equipped with dash cameras.
“They’ve been used to this (since 2008),” Turner added. “I haven’t had anybody take the thing off and say ‘I’m not going to do this because it’s a violation of my rights.’ Nobody has done that and it’s been completely accepted and embraced. We’re lucky in our organization.”
Lawmaker introduces bill to secure funding for cameras
Assemblymember Luis Alejo (D-Salinas) introduced a bill Dec. 17 with the purpose of reining in some of the millions of dollars in federal funding available for body-worn cameras. President Obama has proposed investing $263 million over the next three years to increase the use of body-worn cameras and expanding training on their use.
“The purpose of this legislation is to help local law enforcement agencies draw down critical funding to purchase body-worn cameras,” Alejo said of Assembly Bill 65. “These devices will bring transparency and accountability to law enforcement agencies across the state, while at the same time protecting officers from false accusations.”
