Month: February 2021

Kansas City, Kansas, police officers are in the process of implementing body cameras.

A few Kansas City, Kansas, police divisions have been wearing body cameras, with the entire department scheduled for body cameras by the end of February, according to a police spokeswoman.

Not all police employees will wear the body cameras – they are designated for officers who work with the public.

That may include community policing officers, traffic officers, sergeants and some detectives when they go out to a crime scene, according to Nancy Chartrand, public information officer for the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department. Anyone working with the public on a daily basis will wear body cameras, she said.

Besides the body cam, there will be a dash cam in the patrol vehicle, as well as a panoramic camera that will take pictures from the police vehicle of a wider view, and a camera in the back seat of the vehicle, according to Chartrand.

The cameras will all work together, Chartrand said. When an officer turns on his lights and siren, the cameras will automatically engage.

Besides automatic engagement, the cameras can be turned on manually, for example, if an officer gets out of the car to remove a traffic cone and someone else pulls up who is very upset, the officer may turn on the body camera, she said. Once he does that, the dash cam and panoramic camera also start recording. The cameras also can be turned off manually, in specific situations such as places where privacy is expected.

Cost of the cameras and technology

Total cost for the cameras and system was $1.8 million, including all the hardware and equipment involved, she said. A grant from the U.S. Department of Justice was received for $342,000. UG general funds are used for much of the cost.

The quality of photos taken by the body cams is very good, Chartrand said. While photographers might get a good digital camera starting at $400 or so, the cost of this equipment is much higher and it includes the software necessary to transfer the pictures into storage.

Each officer is issued a Watchguard V300 body cam, about 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, and the cost for one is $1,500, she added. Totaling the body cam, the cost of the cameras in the vehicle, plus the new system in the vehicle, results in about $5,000, she said.

In advance of the body cameras, the Unified Government did a fiber-optic upgrade including some infrastructure work to support the technology, she said.

“When an officer finishes a shift, they take their body-worn and dock it in their vehicle, and it automatically begins that download process,” she said. They don’t have to take it back to the station or the headquarters and download it on a disk and transfer it. Extra personnel aren’t needed to do this transfer work. It’s all done automatically and stored to the server, she said. The footage goes straight into storage, Chartrand said.

The department has rules on how long video recordings can be kept. Those involving cases will be kept forever or until a court issues a destruction order, according to the department’s rules. Recordings from homicide, rape, and aggravated criminal sodomy cases will be kept forever or until a court orders destruction. In other felonies, recordings are kept five years; misdemeanors, one year; traffic stops and citations, one year; vehicle pursuits, five years; all other calls, 120 days; and test videos, 24 hours.

Training on the cameras and policies began in late October. Implementation was being phased in for some of the department’s 320 officers. In a news release, acting Police Chief Michael York said they have been eagerly awaiting the implementation of the body-worn cameras.

Besides training and implementing the cameras for police, the Police Department is introducing to the public this week the idea of officers wearing body cameras. The department is making an effort to get information out about the new cameras and how they work, Chartrand said.

As part of the community education effort, Chartrand said the Police Department will do presentations on body-worn cameras to community groups, businesses or organizations that request them. Because of the pandemic, the presentations will be on Zoom. Interested persons may send an email to [email protected].

A more than two-year process

It took more than two years for the body cameras to become a reality in Kansas City, Kansas. It was under discussion in 2014. The idea had been brought up by community activists early, years before any of the pandemic lockdowns and the national protests of 2020. With its cost there was early hesitation, until Kansas City, Kansas, was offered a Department of Justice grant in 2017 for some of the expense.

After finding the funding, the department had to find a vendor, Chartrand said. When COVID-19 came, it slowed down production, and then national protests increased the demand for body cameras from departments throughout the nation, she said.

The national spotlight was on police brutality cases in 2020, including the George Floyd case in Minneapolis, and body cameras were seen by some activists as a way to protect citizens, while some in law enforcement may view cameras as a way to prove their actions were correct.

The vendor chosen by the Police Department had a huge surge in business during 2020, and the department had to be patient and wait its turn, Chartrand said.

In a Police Department news release Tuesday, Mayor David Alvey was quoted as saying the body cameras are a significant step that provide increased protection for residents and officer, while also building and strengthening trust and transparency in the community.

“The use of this technology has been discussed on multiple occasions by the Mayor’s Task Force on Community and Police Relations since its inception, and I’m pleased that it is now operational in Kansas City, Kansas,” the mayor said in the news release.

The issue of who gets to see the recordings has been the topic of a state law that says the subject of a recording can make a request to view the recording. Others who can view it are the parent or legal guardian of a subject under 18, an attorney for a person who was in the recording, or the heir of a person who was the subject of a recording. The recording could be viewed at city offices.

Some of the recordings could possibly be viewed by the media, under state law, if the police decide they would benefit the safety or education of the public. In general, there would be no expectation of privacy in a public place.

Opportunity for training as well as for transparency

Chartrand said she believes body-worn cameras are becoming the standard now in law enforcement.

“I think that we as officers pride ourselves on being up to date in training and technology, and this is just one more part of that,” she said.

It’s always a learning curve to get used to something on a daily basis, but she thinks officers see the cameras in general as a positive, something that will be there not just to protect them and to protect the citizens, but also to be an ongoing training tool. Reviewing videos can help officers find ways to do their job better, not because they did something out of line, but as a way to improve, she said.

Realizing that the public also may have some hesitation or questions about the body-worn cameras, the department is trying to get in front of this with the community and let them know what to be aware of. For example, the community should know that when the camera’s red light is on, the camera is recording,

She said the Police Department will be sharing information on a regular basis, answering questions on its Faceback page, and holding virtual meetings with community members.