Officials: Equipping all Wichita police with body cameras a challenging project

The Wichita Police Department says it is committed to the mayor’s directive of equipping all street officers – about 450 – with body cameras.

But it is a complicated project that will take more time than some people want, and it will require serious money, Deputy Chief John Speer said Friday. An early estimate is up to $1.5 million.

“This is something that we will have to do in pieces,” Speer said.

Because of variables including body camera supply-and-demand and officer training, there is no timetable so far for completing the project. City Manager Robert Layton said Friday evening that he hopes to have a timetable within the next 30 days.

Although Mayor Carl Brewer initially said he wanted all street officers to be wearing body cameras by the end of the year, when staff began looking at the needs and logistics, it realized the time frame wasn’t possible, Layton said. Brewer couldn’t be reached Friday.

The city has committed to fully funding and implementing body cameras for police, Layton said.

“We’re going to do it right, though,” Layton said. “It has to be done in a way that both the police officers and the public … feel we have the right procedures in place.”

Nationally, interest in the use of body cameras and video evidence has increased since Aug. 9, when a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., shot Michael Brown, a black teenager, sparking weeks of protests.

In Wichita, Brewer made the commitment to try to find the money to “man-up every officer with a camera” during a community meeting in late August called #NoFergusonHere. There has been a string of controversial police shootings in Wichita, most recently the death of Icarus Randolph, a veteran who was shot to death by a police officer on July 4.

Locally, community activists, the police union and U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom also have voiced support for police wearing body cameras.

Djuan Wash, spokesman for Sunflower Community Action, said his group would like to see cameras used by all officers by the end of the year.

“The community would like to see it sooner than later,” Wash said. “Our standpoint on the issue is that the body cameras would help both police officers and citizens,” he said.

“It’s a public safety issue, and it is past due time that these cameras be implemented,” Wash said. “A lot of people in the community believe Ferguson has already been here,” with police shootings. They think body cameras will reduce police use of force, he said.

More and more departments are wanting body cameras, said Speer, the deputy police chief whose duties include overseeing the Police Department’s budget, special operations and training.

Speer noted that the mayor recently expressed his desire to equip officers with body cameras. “We’re going to do what we can right now to meet what his directive is,” Speer said. The department has had 48 cameras spread among the city’s four patrol bureaus and has ordered 12 more. Completing the project will require equipping about 450 officers.

An early estimate of the cost is $1.1 million to $1.5 million to fully implement it, he said. “It’s a very expensive project.”

And it’s complicated, he said, because the department needs to develop a much larger system in which people can be assigned to catalog the video, which can be used as evidence.

The cameras have to be incorporated with 20 pounds of gear that officers already wear, including protective vests and belts, and cameras have to be effectively positioned and placed so that they are ergonomic.

Although the cameras don’t capture everything, from every angle, “we see many benefits of having cameras,” Speer said.

Earlier this week, Paul Zamorano, president of the local police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, provided The Eagle with its talking points on the devices, saying, “The primary benefit of police body cameras would be transparency and accountability. …

“It could show what transpired during an incident keeping in mind the field of view might not be the same as the officer’s peripheral vision. Furthermore, police body cameras do not capture the officer’s perception of what he/she is seeing to make that split second decision. What makes the body cameras beneficial is the fact they add further light to the totality of the information.”

Zamorano said there is an “expectation that police body cameras would improve both police and citizen behaviors.”

He concluded: “The public is protected from police misconduct, and officers are protected from false allegations and complaints.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2014 at 4:16 PM with the headline "Officials: Equipping all Wichita police with body cameras a challenging project."