Body Camera Arrival for Our Patrol Officers
The Body Camera (less) Incident
I HAD DECIDED to equip my patrol employees with body cameras. I had been aware of body cams for sometime. I knew that down the road we would have them. However, a recent event that involved one of my employees accelerated the process.
THE EVENT that kick-started my move towards cameras occurred early one Saturday morning after 2:00AM. We provide nighttime patrol for a large church campus in the San Gabriel Valley. My patrolman, Hector, (pseudonym), happened upon a man who had built something of a shelter from a cardboard box and was presumably asleep inside. This was within the walls of the sanctuary courtyard and the man and his “fort” had to go. However, no sooner had the patrolman called out to the sleeping man inside the box, when suddenly the box flew off and Hector was immediately set upon by a burly man in his 20s who came at Hector with clenched fists. Fortunately, Hector is an experienced patrolman and had positioned himself to his best protective advantage; he stood over 20 feet away from the encampment and held is chemical defense spray at the ready.
As soon as Hector’s assailant came within the 20 foot perimeter the man was hit with a steady burst of 1.3% Oleoresin Capsicum and the assailant was halted in his tracks. At that, the man turned heel and stumbled out of the courtyard and to a motel across the street. There, he used the lobby desk phone to call the police claiming that he had just been “attacked by a security guard”.
The Body Camera (less) Result
Now, what usually happens in circumstances such as these, the police generally regard the first person to make the call to be the “Victim” and the other party involved to be the “suspect”. The police arrived within a few minutes along with a paramedic unit to de contaminate Hector’s attacker of the residue OC particulates. Predictably, the man told the officers that Hector approached the man as he slept on the pavement , and hosed him down with pepper spray without warning. The officers then approached Hector and he gave the officers his account of what happened. Hector sensed the officers were familiar with his attacker and were not buying the sprayed-while-asleep story. On the other hand, Hector did not have anything or anyone to corroborate his account of how things went down.
Good New/Bad News
The outcome of the police officer’s investigation had mixed results. The good news for my employee Hector was that he was not taken into custody on the dubious word of his attacker. The bad news was Hector’s attacker also avoided jail time. Given the circumstances, this outcome is not unusual. In my 30 plus years in the private security field it is more or less standard practice to for police officers to handle similar incidents as mutually contentious “fights” as opposed to a self-defense action on the part of the security officer. It is a default position law enforcement will check when corroborative evidence is not available.
The Right Tool For The Job
Clearly, as the above incident illustrates our need is for a camera that above all allows the patrolman to view recorded events in real time. After researching the available products on the market I chose the Patrol Eyes SC-DV1.
The device is loaded with advanced features and is very user-friendly. The video camera offers instant play-back and displays 1080 dpi video on a two inch wide LCD screen located on the back of the device. The instant play-back is probably the most useful feature as it eliminates the need for a patrolman to have to scroll through batches of video clips to find the one he needs at a critical moment.
The camera can also shoot still photos in 16 megapixel quality . Both video and still images can be shot in infared mode with the press of a button located on the side of the device. Additional clip-on wide angle camera lenses in both infared and daytime modes can be purchased separately for about $150.00 a piece.
These are only the highlights of the many features offered by the Patrol Eyes SC-DV1. Lastly , I will say the price was very easy on my eyes. (under $250.00 per unit). I believe the Patrol Eyes will be the standard for many private security organizations based on its price.
Body Camera Policy Guidelines
In researching policy guidelines for the body cameras I found law enforcement sources supported the concept of allowing police officers descretionary authority to record or not to record within policy prescriptions. For example, officers could turn off the camera in casual conversation or when interviewing witnesses who may be concerned about confidentiality. Similarly, most sources agreed that officers ought to be able to review video following an incident.As I had mentioned previously the instant play-back feature of our camera of choice was the deal maker as far as I was concerned. For the private patrolman who finds himself surrounded by skeptical police following an incident, the patrolman must have the ability to produce video evidence that will immediately exonerate him. Otherwise, in the absence of such evidence, he will likely find himself suffering the indignity and potentially hazardous circumstance of being taken into custody in uniform for further questioning at the police headquarters.
Overall, the policy considerations were pretty straightforward; patrol staff cannot erase or edit any video clips. Unless a particular video loop is needed for either a criminal investigation or client-related inquiry, all videos are erased from our system after a 30 day period.
I will write a follow up article once our program has been implemented company wide and share our experiences.
DW
