Body cams go live
By Terry Murry on Monday, March 8th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
COLLEGE PLACE – College Place police officers began wearing body cameras last week, and the city council will give final approval to the use of the cameras at its meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. Wearing the cameras has already been approved by the police union.
CPPD now has 15 Axon body cameras. They are being worn by all the officers who will record all interactions with the public during everything from traffic stops to major criminal investigations. The cost of the five-year contract for the cameras, as well as 15 Tasers that were included, totals $202,354.02. Payments are spread over the life of the contract, which includes redaction software and cloud server storage.
“Body cameras provide a great sense of transparency,” Chief Troy Tomaras said. “Law enforcement has been pretty beat-up over the last year for social injustice concerns. I think it’s just good that we are making every effort to be transparent.”
Officers will turn on their cameras at the beginning of every call for service, and notify the individuals that they are being recorded.
“Typically, I think law enforcement has been bad communicators, and that’s one of the reasons why the problems we have,” Tomaras said. “We’re working very hard to be better communicators and to be more transparent. This is just another way to do that.”
Tomaras said that all of the officers agreed of the need to have body cameras on patrol because they protect the public and the officers as well.
