Calgary Police Begin Body Worn Cameras Pilot Project
November 9, 2012, Calgary Beacon
In addition to digital video cameras being installed in police vehicles, this month Calgary Police are beginning a pilot project to test body worn cameras. Beginning this week, 50 officers will use the body cameras. The devices will be used by district patrols, K-9 units and the Traffic Section. Body worn cameras will be one more way for police to capture evidence. Officials hope they will enhance police officer safety as well as public safety and provide transparency.
Coeur d’Alene police enlist new body cameras
October 12, 2012, KREM News
The Coeur d’Alene Police Department has strapped on body mounted video cameras onto every patrol officer. Officer Josh Sterling has been with the Coeur d’Alene Police Department for one year. Sterling turns on his body mounted video camera every time he pulls someone over or responds to a call. Sterling is one of 40 Coeur d’Alene Patrol Officers now equipped with a third eye. The camera records the job from their perspective. Sterling said he has seen it change the way people act towards him. “It has changed some of their attitude. Once they know they are being recorded, they kind of have a different view on the way they are going to talk and things like that.”
Body-worn cameras: The truth now has backup
October 23, 2012, PoliceOne.com
While some agencies are still trying to decide whether or not to install in-car recorders, technology has moved on dramatically with personal digital recording units increasingly available for officers. Law Enforcement being behind the curve on new technology is not a new phenomenon. For example, the Mauser semi-automatic “broom handle” C 96 pistol was introduced in 1896 and some law enforcement agencies were still transitioning from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols 100 years later. Departments considering the introduction of personal video recorders will commonly ask two questions: 1.) Where does the money come from? 2.) Will recorders harm us or help us?
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Gilroy PD Acquires VIEVU Body-Worn Cameras with Grant Funding
September 27, 2012, PoliceOne.com
The 19 clip-on cameras Gilroy police purchased with federal grant funds earlier this summer are currently being tested on several officers in the field while the police union negotiates with the department on fair and “reasonable” guidelines for their use. The LE2 Vievu body cameras, which were purchased in July with a $15,827 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant at no cost to the Gilroy Police Department, are cell-phone sized devices that clip to an officer’s uniform to capture audio and color video recordings of incidents, according to Police Sgt. Chad Gallacinao. “We hope to use video evidence in court prosecutions to make that process run efficiently, to give an accurate depiction of what happened. Hopefully it will reduce potential civil liability and be able to aid us in the reviewing of alleged officer misconduct,” Gallacinao said. After the GPD’s traffic unit implemented five of these cameras a year ago, administration decided to make it a priority and applied for a grant to purchase more. The traffic unit “routinely” use their camera footage as evidence in traffic court, Gallacinao said.
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Cop cams debut at University of Iowa
September 18, 2012, The Gazette
During a voluntary search of a University of Iowa student’s dorm room in 2007, UI police officers were abruptly asked to leave. They did, and the student called the UI Public Safety Department a short time later to complain. She accused the officers of being crooked and of planting drugs in her room. A UI official told the student that, fortunately, there was a quick way to find out. The accused officer at the time was experimenting with a body-worn video camera.“ Let’s check the video,” the staff member suggested.“(The student) hung up,” according to UI police Officer Alton Poole. “The video cameras really clear up complaints quickly.”
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CDA police officers to wear body cameras
August 29, 2012, KREM News
Patrol officers in Coeur d’Alene will soon start wearing body cameras. The equipment, called “point of view” cameras, record what an officer witnesses first-hand. Coeur d’Alene Police studied the cameras for the past two years, and tried out different types. They finally selected the Vievu model, which cost $875.00 each, for an investment total of $36,500. The Police Department has been using dash cameras in their patrol cars since the 1990’s. Video from the dash cams is often used as evidence. Officials decided they needed more coverage because there are times that an officer is not directly in front of their vehicle and not able to record an incident. In a statement, Chief Wayne Longo said the Department now has the ability to review officer contacts with citizens that result in citizen complaints and either address those concerns when valid or protect against false accusations.
Case study: How one department uses body-worn cameras to protect officers
August 28, 2012, PoliceOne.com
The Campbell Police Department in California serves an area of 6.1 square miles, with an overall population of 40,000 residents, and has 40 officers on staff. Since the early 1980s, the department has been an advocate and practitioner of the use of video recording to preserve evidence of the realities of their encounters with the public. However, in recent years it became apparent that the footage recorded by standard in-car cameras was limited, especially since more and more of those contacts were occurring when officers were away from their vehicles.
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Port Washington police wearing tiny cameras on uniforms
July 27, 2012, TMJ4 News
Police officers in Port Washington are wearing some new technology. They have tiny cameras on their uniforms. The Port Washington Police Department just starting using hand-held devices that look like a pager, but there’s a tiny lens inside. The advantage to these cameras? They’re mobile. They go with the officer everywhere from minor traffic accidents, to murder investigations, to the courthouse. Port Washington’s Police Chief Kevin Hingiss thinks more criminals will likely plead guilty — since the proof is in the recording.
Product Review: The VIEVU PVR-LE2 body-worn camera
July 26, 2012, PoliceOne.com
It’s been a long time since George Holliday picked up his video camera and pressed the “record” button, capturing on tape the arrest of Rodney King. Back then, a relatively finite number of people owned personal video cameras, but 30 years after that event we’re surrounded by them. Just about everybody has a cell phone with some form of video recording capability, and in some cities you can’t stroll down a sidewalk without being captured on one stationary surveillance camera after another, after another. As my good friend Dr. Bill Lewinsky once told me (and I’m paraphrasing here), a videotape is the two dimensional record of a three-dimensional event, and therefore cannot show completely what happened during a given incident.
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How wearable cameras aid law enforcement
July 17, 2012, State Tech Magazine
In Anderson City, S.C., police officers have a new high-tech accessory that’s helping them close cases: wearable body cameras. After several months in use, Vievu cameras have helped Anderson City law enforcement gather evidence that led to convictions for domestic violence, driving under the influence and much more.
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Police body-worn video evidence hits the cloud
June 5, 2012, Wired.com
With body-worn video cameras only being used by little more than 6 percent of police nationwide, VIEVU is looking to make the technology more affordable and practical by storing video evidence in the cloud. The service will launch on June 11. For $10 $20 a month per camera (with 90 days of file storage), “users can store, share, review and access secure and encrypted video evidence 24 hours a day,” VIEVU said on Tuesday (and later revised on Wednesday.) “Budgets are extremely tight for law enforcement agencies, and offering monthly cloud subscription reduces up-front costs, and allows precincts to ramp usage up or down as needed,” a company spokesman said in an email.
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VIEVU LLC’s ‘wearable cameras’ described by managing director, Steve Lovell
May 8, 2012, Government Security News
Law enforcement agencies have been benefitting from in-car video since the early 1990’s in terms of obtaining better evidence, improved conviction rates and the exoneration of officers facing unwarranted complaints. But, it wasn’t until 2007, when VIEVU, LLC, of Seattle, WA, introduced its PVR-LE2 that the idea of “wearable cameras” took off.
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Our View: Time to buy lapel cameras for officers
May 2, 2012, The Gadsden Times
Some things are so obviously right that additional discussion of them is a waste of time. They just need to happen. We think the notion of lapel cameras for Gadsden Police Department patrol officers falls into this category. The City Council in January received a recommendation from its Public Safety Committee that it buy 68 of the cameras, which record both video and sound. They would be used by patrol officers anytime they are on calls or interact with the public.
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VIEVU receives highest score in US Dept. of Homeland Security’s review of body worn cameras
March, 2012, US Dept. of Homeland Security
“Security of the video is excellent … The unit is small, lightweight, compact and easy to use …”
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Body cameras record Brandford cops’ activity form new point of view
March 16, 2012, The New Haven Register
The Police Department plans to purchase 10 more video cameras that attach to officers’ uniforms and allow police to record their interactions with citizens. Capt. Geoffrey Morgan said the department has had two of the “VieVu” brand cameras for about a year. The department is adding the additional cameras with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund, specifically from funds seized from drug dealers, police said.
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CT cop body cameras record police/civilian interactions
March 19, 2012, NBC New York News
A Connecticut police department plans to purchase 10 new body cameras that can record officers’ interactions with individuals they question or arrest. Traffic officers in Branford have been equipped with a few of the cameras for a year and believe they’ve helped prevent unsubstantiated civilian complaints. “People can make any kind of accusation they want, but now it’s recorded,” said Officer Rick Kenney. “In the past, they have accused me of being rude. Well, now it’s all on tape.”
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The police are watching… and recording
March 15, 2012, Branford Patch
Did you know that right now, if you were to be pulled over while driving by one of two Branford traffic officers your every move is being documented? Attached to the uniform of officers Bryan McGinnis and Richard Kenney are VieVu body cameras. Soon, the use of body cameras will extend beyond traffic patrol as Branford’s Board of Police Commissioners approved the purchase of 10 of them for the patrol officers at last night’s monthly meeting.
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Spokane police could wear body mounted cameras
January 4, 2012, KREM News
Spokane’s new Mayor David Condon announced the city is looking at new cameras police officers could be wearing. The cameras are already being used in Airway Heights. Officers in Airway Heights are using body mounted cameras when responding to calls. The camera sits the size of a pager. The officer is in charge of activating the camera and it records the officers every move, every word, and every other person he or she contacts. A little more than two years ago the Airway Heights Police Department considered installing dash cams on it’s vehicles but the department bought the body mounted cameras instead.