Mayor: Cost of new police body cam program could top $100,000

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016, 9 p.m. — The Bardstown City Council was assured at its meeting Tuesday that the decision to suspend the use of body cameras in the police department was a temporary measure designed to avoid creating records the department could not track.

Councilwoman Kecia Copeland.

Councilwoman Kecia Copeland asked for a progress report on the status of the body cameras since Mayor John Royalty ordered them discontinued Tuesday, July 26. At the council’s safety committee meeting that day, acting police chief McKenzie Mattingly explained the problems with the existing cameras and said he would research another body camera vendor within the next 30 days.

City Attorney Tim Butler told the council that the decision to suspend the cameras came after Nelson Circuit Judge Charles Simms granted the suppression of evidence in a case where the defense attorney had body camera video, but the police department could not locate it for the officer or prosecutor. The defense attorney located a copy of the missing video in a district court case file, and successfully used the video in the suppression hearing.

In his order, Simms recommended the police department do a better job storing body camera video.

“We’re looking at it,” Mayor John Royalty told Copeland about the body camera program. “When I get done looking at it and they come to me with something, you’ll be the first to know.”

Copeland said she didn’t think the council was given good information about the existing body cameras.

“I heard they were junk and no research was done,” she said. “When I did my research I found we had looked at them for six months, and they had a 9.2 rating out of 10.”

Copeland asked why software updates for the existing cameras weren’t being considered as an option. She also told the mayor that lacking a formal announcement regarding the camera program, the public’s perception is that the department wanted to end their use.

Royalty said the issue was more than simply updating to Windows 10 and cited “technical problems within the system” with the existing cameras.

“If you can’t fix what you have, and if you can’t get it right, then stop taking the video and get a system that is correct,” he said.

City Attorney Tim Butler said the safety committee had two choices — continue creating video that may not be reliably catalogued, or stop using the cameras until a solution is found.

The problem of dealing with body camera video isn’t a problem unique to Bardstown, he advised the council. The solution may require hiring a fulltime clerk just to manage the camera video to replace the fulltime officer who performs those duties now.

With the body cameras, “you get the benefit but you also get the liability of managing the records,” he said.

Body cameras are not required, and many departments do not use them.

Copeland and Councilman Francis Lydian said citizens have contacted them to express support for keeping the cameras. Copeland said

“I don’t know where anyone got the idea that I was going to get rid of them,” Royalty said of the cameras. “I stopped them to keep from getting in deeper trouble than we already were about cataloguing the data.”

Mattingly and Lt. Brad Gillock are researching the cameras, he said, and he expressed his support in their continued research.

“They’re looking a several companies and I can tell you this, its not going to be cheap.”

When the research is ready, he promised to bring it to the council for their review — and for them to determine how they plan to pay for them. He told the council to expect a price tag in excess of $100,000.

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