The City of Baldwin plans to spend $6,349 to buy wearable cameras for their police force.
In total, they’ll equip seven officers with Watchguard Vista HD cameras that will connect with the department’s existing dashboard camera system. It will give them audio and coverage from two cameras for each police operation.
“This adds a layer of redundancy to the in-car camera,” says Mayor Jerry Neace, “so you have two viewpoints of each incident.”
Chief Chad Nichols pushed for the devices and is using money from the sale of “seized assets” to help pay for them.
The cameras will be attached to an officer’s uniform via a system of magnets and metal clamps which the Chief says is very secure. “I’m not saying it could never be torn off but I would hate to be in the fight where it did get torn off. It would take some real effort to do it.”
Nichols points to the recent accusations of wrongdoing against police officers nationwide in explaining the need for the cameras and the need for more transparency in day-to-day police operations. “It’s for collecting evidence,” Nichols says, “but also for liability protection for the officers.”
It could also protect the city should any local officers be accused of impropriety during a traffic stop or other interaction. “Baldwin’s Police Department, many years past, got a bad reputation,” Neace admits.
That “bad reputation” includes repeated allegations from ticketed drivers that the town, specifically the portions of 365 and 441 patrolled by Baldwin PD, is a speed trap. Those claims were investigated by the Georgia State Patrol in 2001. The state found the allegations to be false, clearing the city of any wrongdoing, but you will still find warnings about Baldwin’s ticketing practices on various “speedtrap” websites.
In addition to the debunked complaints, there were a couple of high-profile resignations from the department back in 2013. Both were directly related to allegations against an officer stemming from a traffic stop.
Mayor Neace says the department underwent a complete overhaul 18 months ago and is working hard to put those bad times behind them. He believes the new technology will further improve relations between Baldwin neighbors and the Police. “It will protect our officers and will also allow us (city leaders) to gauge how they interact with the public,” Neace adds. “They (officers) are our diplomats because they have more contact with the public than just about any other city worker.”
There is still work to be done before the new camera-equipped Baldwin Police hit the streets. First, leaders instructed the chief to come up with a policy instructing officers to turn on the cameras for each traffic stop or citizen interaction, “You hate to have this kind of technology, says Council Member Joe Elam, “and then realize that somebody forgot to push the button.” That situation came up recently with one of the town’s dash-cam video units. It wasn’t recharged properly and didn’t record a traffic-stop that was later disputed.
They also need a long-term storage solution for all the data the cameras will generate. “We don’t know how long it might be before someone brings up an issue,” Council Member Jeff Parrish cautions. “We need somewhere to keep (videos) for longer than a month or two.”
Parrish also wants a policy to protect folks from being unfairly exposed. Currently, media outlets can request dash-cam or body-cam video through Georgia’s “Open Records Act” in the same way we can request someone’s arrest photo. “I still have an issue with mug shots being released when a person hasn’t been convicted of a crime,” Parrish says. “You see them (body-cam videos) now on TV. Somebody that gets stopped but really hadn’t done anything, we need to come up with some way to protect these peoples’ privacy.”
Baldwin City Council will vote on the purchase of the new police cameras at their regular meeting Monday, June 8 at 6:30 pm in the Baldwin Municipal Courtroom at 155 Willingham Ave.
