CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state’s largest municipal police force will soon be fitted with body cameras.
Charleston City Council approved a grant for $86,000 Tuesday night to go toward the purchase of body cameras and related equipment for the city police department.
It’s a win-win situation, according to Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster.
“It’s going to enhance our professionalism. I think in the spirit of transparency it will make us more credible to the citizens,” Webster said. “We see it as a positive. It can also be evidence collection. They’ve been shown across the country to be good evidence when necessary. And people behave more when they know they’re being recorded.”
He wasn’t sure when exactly officers would start wearing the cameras. He estimated that the money granted would purchase about 60 or 70 cameras, but there’s more involved than just the cameras themselves.
“We’re going to use (the money) for as many body cameras as we can,” Webster said. “Server space and things like that. There’s a lot of back end costs; there’s batteries and clips involved. It’s expensive technology but it’s very valuable and I think people will like it.”
A policy for how to store the images and how many images to store on the server would have to be implemented, as well as a policy on how officers will wear the cameras, which Webster said is important.
“It can be on the shoulder or around the tie area at the middle of the chest. That’s a question we have to answer is what’s going to give us the best image based on positioning,” Webster explained.
More research has to be done on the project, but Webster says they ultimately want to have 100 cameras
“With this available money, we won’t be able to buy more than 60 or 70, but it’s a great start,” said Webster. “Everybody we’ve talked to talks about the server and having all of your visual storage set up. I don’t have a timetable on (when officers would start wearing them), but I hope it’s sooner rather than later.”