Tampa police to buy 60 body cameras for pilot program
Temple Terrace Police Department Corp. Kyle Smity wears a body cam. The lens (on front) swivles up or dowd for the proper angle. FILE
TAMPA — The police department is poised to take the next step in its eventual plan to equip all its officers with body-worn cameras.
Tampa officials will buy 60 cameras from Taser International for a pilot program to help the department develop policies and procedures for using the technology.
The $83,845 purchase and five-year contract with Taser International will go before the City Council on Thursday. If the purchase is approved by the council, the department will deploy the cameras as soon as it gets them, police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said.
Hopefully, she said, officers can start using them by the end of the month.
“The ultimate goal is for every officer to have a body camera, but through this pilot program and study we can learn what the capabilities are and where we can go from here,” Davis said.
The use of body cameras has been a topic of discussion for law enforcement officials for several years but was recently thrust onto the national stage after a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed an unarmed black man in August.
Many questioned what really happened between the police officer and 18-year-old Michael Brown before the shooting and said a body camera could have provided answers.
The Tampa Police Department has been researching body-worn cameras since last January, Davis said. The department requested information from various manufacturers in the spring and summer and asked for contract bids in the fall.
“It’s a very researched process,” Davis said. “Because when you’re spending this kind of money you want to take your time, and that’s what we did.”
Taser International — an Arizona-based company widely known for its production of stun-gun devices — has outfitted several large police departments with body cameras recently, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the New York City Police Department and departments in Texas, North Carolina and New Mexico.
Twenty cameras each will be distributed to officers in the Tampa Police Department’s three districts after they undergo a training period, Davis said. In addition to providing the cameras, Taser International will maintain the storage of the digital videos. The written policies and procedures for use of the technology currently is in draft form and undergoing an approval process with the city and the police department.
Questions have been raised about potential legal snags related to body cameras, including privacy concerns and public records compliance. Police officials hope the pilot program will help the department address those issues, Davis said.
“Through starting small, we can learn and tweak and adjust the policy,” she said.
The department is joining other West-Central Florida law enforcement agencies that have begun using body cameras. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and the Sarasota Police Department have announced that they will soon be using the technology; the Temple Terrace Police Department has been using them for a couple of years.
Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco, whose deputies will be wearing Taser Axon body cameras by February, has said he wanted to use the technology not only as an investigative tool but as a means of protecting law enforcement from false claims.
A 2012 study conducted by the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology found that the number of citizen complaints and the number of use-of-force incidents dropped significantly when officers with the Rialto, California, police department began wearing body cameras.
Pastor Tom Scott, a former Tampa city councilman who has been outspoken about the lack of trust between black communities and law enforcement across the country recently, applauded the city’s decision to equip officers with body cameras.
“I fully support that,” Scott said. “I think that’s just another way of protecting both the community and the police officers.”
Ebehrman@Tampatrib.com
(813)259-7691
Twitter: @LizBehrmanTBO
