From August 1, 60 randomly selected police officers will begin nationwide body camera testing. It is hoped that at the end of a six-month trial stint, these devices will be issued to every officer on duty.
Speaking at the launch of the pilot project at the St Joseph Police Station yesterday, CEO of the Telecommunication Services of T&T (TSTT) Dr Ronald Walcott, who purchased the cameras and the accompanying supportive software to lend to the police service, said the programme is ground breaking and will aid in the management of the police service.
He said the footage collected from the cameras will be stored automatically and the footage cannot be modified, while access to the footage requires specific security clearance. The camera can be submerged in one metre of water for up to 30 minutes and has a 210-degree angle with five microphones for clarity and a pre-buffering system. Once fully charged, the cameras, which will be clipped onto an officer’s clothes, can last for 10 hours recording. The cameras were purchased from Motorolla at a cost of $500,000.
In his feature address, acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams said a safer country could not be created by the wave of a magic wand, adding that the pilot will be the first nationwide testing of body worn cameras in the world.
He commended head of the Police Social and Welfare Association, Insp Michael Seales, on his repeated public calls for the police to be outfitted with the body cameras, as police had been “unduly targeted” by citizens who presented only fractions of events that they recorded on their cellphones. He added that outside of using the toilets, a police officer assigned a camera must have it turned on at all times.
In response to questions, Williams said the project will be supported by a departmental order that will mandate that an officer does not remove or turn off the camera and if it is done the officer will be sanctioned. He added that based on the situation, the punishment will vary.
Williams said the previous project of body worn cameras in the Central Division was an internal experiment to see how officers treated with using the new equipment. He said the cameras will be given to 25 police stations across the country to be used for the trial period and the distribution of the footage will be done following advice from the legal team.
In a telephone interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, head of the Police Complaints Authority David West said he was pleased the project was launched, noting it will bring the police service into the 21st century. He called it a “step in the right direction.”
Seales, who was at the launch of the project, later told the media he hopes the 25 stations selected will comprise those where there are numerous reports of police brutality.
“The association would have hoped that the hotspot areas, for example Port-of-Spain district, with police brutality reports will be the first primal area flooded with the cameras. Our hope is that for citizens’ sake that areas like that will be one of the 25 stations that get the body worn cameras,” Seales said, adding that it would have been ideal if the cameras were distributed to each police station.
Seales said the cameras will assist in reducing police overwork and overtime as the camera can work as a second officer, leaving a one-man patrol with the necessary support available when needed. He said the Central Division project showed that both police and citizens changed the way they interacted with each other.
“There needs to be a swift response to releasing the footage captured by these cameras in the case of police-involved shootings so that the public could formulate an opinion on what really took place,” Seales said.