As we increase our advocacy of body and dash cameras for police, I think it's important that we call out those police departments that are already moving in that direction. This would seem particularly important where larger/urban police departments are concerned.
In that vein, we should take note of recent actions by Lexington-Fayette County (KY) government and the Lexington-Fayette County Police Department.
Details below the fold...
Yesterday, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray submitted his proposed budget for next year, and it includes a healthy chunk of money for police body cameras. As Lexington's WKYT reported:
Mayor Jim Gray's proposed budget for next year includes funding for police body cameras.
In his address to members of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, he announced a budget surplus for the third year in a row.
Lexington police were already involved in a body camera pilot program, that's in its early stages.
Commander Greg Jones said some officers are wearing cameras now. The goal is to find out what works, and what doesn't work in the process.
"I think you have to look at different things like the hardware, software, training, policy, maintenance, retrieval, storage, etcetera," said Jones.
Jones said it's all about being prepared when funding is approved.
Lexington police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts says $600,000 is earmarked for the cameras.
This has been "in the works" for some time; the Lexington PD
announced a pilot program last September:
"I think the reason that we're going down this path is because this is the trend that we're seeing nationally and I think it's very important for the public to feel that we're being as transparent and accountable as possible," explains Spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts. She says the department will use $160,000 from a US Justice Department grant to test out different brands and styles.
I think it's also important to note the source of funding for last year's pilot; we should ask other departments whether they have applied for similar grants from the Department of Justice.
It's interesting to see that a nearby police department in Central Kentucky has been using body cameras for five years. From the latter article linked above:
Patrol officers in Berea have been using body cameras for about five years.
"Most people don't even notice it nine times out of ten. People don't even know that we have it," says Sergeant Jake Reed, "someone can record something and upload it to YouTube and it may not show the whole picture. If we're recording ourselves we can show the whole picture."
Reed is required to record traffic stops, arrests, call-outs on injury accidents, and domestic violence.
Now, Berea is a much smaller city than Lexington (population ~14,000, compared to Lexington's ~300,000) with a much smaller police department, but it's instructive to note that Berea's deployment does not seem to have limited the police's ability to work, nor has it created concern among the city's residents.
Let's use this example of a large (525 officers), urban (population ~300,000) police department moving to use body cameras in our discussions and arguments. If police departments as large as Lexington's AND as small as Berea's can do this, why can't yours?