GIG HARBOR, Wash. (AP) - A series of glitches have plagued the deployment of body cameras in the Gig Harbor, Washington, police department.
The News Tribune reports the project has been in the works for almost a year, but technical problems have made it a rocky rollout.
One of these occurred in March, when officers were discovering their car batteries were dead. It turns out that a Bluetooth receiver was drawing down the batteries by continuously looking to see if the camera was active. Officers also had trouble uploading their recorded videos to internet cloud servers, and some of the camera firmware turned out to be obsolete.
Police Chief Kelly Busey says 10 of the department’s 14 patrol cars are now equipped with the technology.
“The primary technical aspects we had to clear up was the communication, getting the videos from the car to the cloud. We were trying to do that through the officer’s computer,” Busey said. “That simply didn’t work for a variety of reasons, so it took us a couple of months to get a (wireless) access point installed above the garage here at our police department.”
Patrol officer Jarab Daniel said department policy determines when officers will turn on the cameras.
“Anything where I’m going to make an arrest. Anything that appears to disorderly, violent, any sort of physical altercation,” Daniel said. “A bunch of different scenarios. If it’s aggressive in nature, pursuits, that kind of stuff.”
The department began testing three body cameras in a pilot program in 2016. Busey said the test was a success, but deploying the cameras department-wide required negotiation with the police union.
Busey said he is now working with the manufacturer, Getac, and that out of 14 patrol units, 10 are currently successfully deployed with body cameras. In an email, Busey said he hopes to increase cameras in patrol units when they get to full staff by filling two openings and also get a new vehicle that will have all the right technology.
Busey previously said the cost of this program was “roughly $150,000” for hardware as well as other aspects, such as storage space. An additional $5,000 was spent to overcome the technical hurdles and Busey said “less than $200” was spent on swapping out inoperable docks.
Busey hopes the program, when fully implemented, will put them ahead of the curve in what he sees as a likely reform to be undertaken statewide.
“Every police officer in Washington state knows that body cams will be mandatory at some point very soon.”
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