MOUNT VERNON – The Mount Vernon Police Department wants to spend approximately $128,000 to outfit every patrol officer and patrol car with cameras.
A bid from Watchguard Video Technologies covers 25 body cameras, nine patrol car cameras, chargers, spare batteries, and the software to manage and edit the video footage, Police Chief Robert K. Morgan said.
Cameras would be assigned to patrol officers, the school resource officer, one for the detective division and spares for when an auxiliary officer rides with an officer, he told City Council’s Fire, Police and Civil Defense Committee on Feb. 22.
Cameras now in use are outdated and past their warranty dates, Morgan noted.
By paying for the new cameras upfront, the city would save $5,000 compared to a five-year plan, auditor Terry Scott said. City Council could use capital funds unappropriated from the 2021 budget, plus the $30,000 set aside for the first payment.
Bender Communications of Marion, Ohio, would be the local dealer for WatchGuard, and its technicians would install cameras in the patrol cars.
The cameras will “record after the fact,” Peter Klaus of WatchGuard Technologies told City Council.
“We’re the only vendor to offer this and guarantee you have a second chance at getting your video in the event a record button was not activated,” he said.
The cameras store five to seven days of just video, with that dropping by several days if the feature is set to include audio.
Best practices and City policy has the Police Department keeping all video recordings for six months or longer if the video is tagged as needed, such as for a court case, Morgan said. At present, 10 to 12 months of video is kept on the server.
Morgan said an important feature is the ability to redact people’s faces and voices before releasing videos as public records. The software with the department’s current camera system doesn’t allow for redactions. If you cannot redact faces — such as kids or domestic violence victims and their voices — from a video with a suspect, that video is not released.
The WatchGuard software enables such redactions for children’s or a victim’s privacy.
WatchGuard’s bid includes a full five-year, no-fault warranty in which any camera that breaks is repaired or a replacement is shipped immediately.
A WatchGuard technician would visit the city after the cameras and software are shipped to check on installation. The technician would also help train supervisors, who in turn would train patrol officers.
