Body, vehicle cameras coming soon for Memphis police

The city of Eugene must match the grant announced Wednesday in order for the department to get the cameras and space to store the recordings, The (Eugene) Register-Guard reported.

Durr said there are multiple tasks to address before the cameras can be purchased and activated, but that he’s hopeful most officers will be using them a year from now.

St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith cited the Rialto data in documents presented to the city council last month, supporting a body camera program.

The November 2014 edition of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology included a study of police in Rialto, Calif., one of the first departments to use body cameras and consistently track them.

Just as with all records filed by the Police Department, video footage from the body cameras is subject to the state’s Open Records Act, but because it is considered evidence, is protected until after a case is closed. Captain Jose Silva with the department said it’s a tool not just for officers, but also for the people. The officer must switch the camera on when responding to a call or an interaction with a citizen. The grants are worth about $1.3 million combined.

“The benefits of body cams are both financial and judicial”, she says. He said there will be cameras in more than 400 vehicles by January 2016.

The BodyVision cameras were ordered in April of this year from L3 Mobile Vision, the same company that installed and maintains the mobile video recorders in the department’s marked patrol cars. “There are a lot of privacy issues that come up, and [navigating these issues] is part of our responsibility”.

Officers won’t start officially using them, Harvey said, until each precinct is outfitted with corresponding technology, including power sources and networking equipment. City officials hope this will cut down on the number of civilian complaints, aid the department in lawsuits and help investigations.

Armstrong says 500 officers cameras should be equipped with the cameras by early October, with a total of 2,000 deployed by the end of the year.