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Police body cameras reduce complaints and supply evidence
YOUNGSTOWN
A Lowellville police sergeant said his department has had a favorable experience with body cameras in the year since they were introduced there, and the Mahoning County sheriff wants to use them on a larger scale.
“We love them. If you’re doing the job correctly, then they’re great,” said Lowellville Police Sgt. Don Coppola.
That department has four body cameras. One is assigned to Police Chief Ryan Bonacci, and another is shared by Coppola and Capt. Stacy Karis, who work different shifts. Two more are shared among 15 part-time officers of the village police department working different shifts.
“We adopted a policy that they must be turned on any time there’s any public interaction” with the officer, Coppola said.
“It is a very good thing when you interact with the public because there are so many false accusations, and it also lets the supervisors review what our patrol officers are doing, and we can critique it,” Coppola said of body camera use.
“It’s a good teaching tool,” he added.
In Lowellville, the officers wear the cameras on the fronts of their bulletproof vests or uniform shirts.
The village police department bought the Taser Axon Body Cameras, which record both audio and video, for $399 each using its equipment budget.
Village police have cruiser cameras, but they’re no longer using them because the body cameras provide better pictures and a better perspective of events, Coppola said.
“Eventually, all of law enforcement will be moving towards this type of equipment,” said Sheriff Jerry Greene.
The sheriff said his department expects to buy at least 20 body cameras for use by all road patrol deputies and some deputies who provide court security starting early in 2015.
“The body-worn camera, I believe, increases the transparency and legitimacy of your police agency,” Greene said.
“It’ll improve the behavior of the police officer as well as improving the behavior of the person they’re dealing with, knowing that they’re being recorded,” he added.
“It also reduces internal affairs complaints and helps with evidence in prosecuting cases,” Greene said.
The cameras will help reduce false accusations and lawsuits against officers, he added.
“It removes the ‘he said, she said’ element out of the frivolous complaints,” said Maj. William Cappabianca of the sheriff’s office.
Deputies who get body cameras will wear them on the front shirt pockets of their uniforms, and the devices will record both video and audio, the sheriff said.
The recordings will be downloaded onto a server for future retrieval for use as evidence or in internal-affairs investigations, Greene said.
With permission of the U.S. Department of Justice, the sheriff said he’d like to use his existing Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant from that agency to buy the cameras, which he said are likely to cost $400 to $500 each.
If permission is denied, Greene said his department might pay for the cameras from ill-gotten gains forfeited by drug dealers.
“One of the concerns we have is the annual expense of storing the information and the expense of reproducing the video” in storage and the cost of staff time needed to redact faces of juveniles and any other content that shouldn’t be publicly released, the sheriff said.
Due to budget constraints, the sheriff’s office has only three cruiser dash cameras, which record video and audio, Cappabianca said.
Together, they cost $10,000 and were acquired using a state grant from the Ohio Traffic Safety Office, he said.
Aside from being cheaper, the body cameras are “just as beneficial or more beneficial” than dash cameras, the sheriff concluded.