The Los Angeles Police Department isn’t the only massive Southern California law enforcement agency grappling with the use of body-worn cameras in the wake of controversial shootings and confrontations around the nation.
The Riverside county Board of Supervisors next week is expected to authorize Sheriff Stan Sniff to move ahead with plans to outfit all patrol deputies with body-worn cameras to “improve employee and citizen accountability.”
The giant sheriff’s department not only patrols unincorporated areas of Riverside County, it also has a major presence in numerous smaller cities where deputies act as the local police under contracts with those communities.
The Riverside Board of Supervisors is slated Tuesday to vote to accept a $577,900 U.S. Department of Justice-Bureau of Justice Assistance grant that’s specifically intended to fund the sheriff’s efforts to equip personnel with wearable video cameras while in the field.
The grant requires a 50 percent county match, which Sniff said has already been budgeted in the current fiscal year.
“The project will expand our existing body-worn camera program, improve employee and citizen accountability and strengthen community relationships by using video to improve transparency in law enforcement encounters with the public,” according to a sheriff’s statement posted to the board’s policy agenda.
An additional 1,000 patrol deputies will be provided cameras thanks to the grant award, sheriff’s officials said.
Sniff inaugurated a formal policy on the use of body cams at the beginning of the year.
In March 2015, he initiated a pilot program to test the effectiveness of the cameras, deploying the shirt-mounted devices with deputies in Jurupa Valley.
The Riverside Sheriffs’ Association initially challenged the field testing because there was no provision in deputies’ collective bargaining agreement with the county that specified how the cameras would be utilized and whether RSA members would have the option of not wearing them.
The union later dropped its challenge after negotiators and sheriff’s executive staff reached a compromise on the conditions of department-wide use.
“Due to lack of audio or video record of the majority of police and citizen encounters, the department spends a significant amount of time annually investigating citizen complaints against officers,” the agency said. “In order to save personnel time and increase accountability of both officers and citizens, the department needs to equip every uniformed patrol officer with a body-worn camera and establish policies as needed.”
The sheriff’s department acquired 165 body cams from Seattle-based Vie Vu in November 2014 at a cost of $184,000. It’s unclear whether the sheriff will continue to use that vendor for the new purchases.
The goal is to have all patrol personnel trained and wearing cams within two years.
— City News Service