Jefferson police officers will have new in-car and body-worn cameras soon, hopefully before the current equipment fails.
Police chief Mark Clouse and captain Heath Enns told the city council Tuesday that Digital Ally, the manufacturer of the current system, is in dire straights and no service is available. Two body cameras are not functioning and one of the in-car cameras fails almost daily. Some of the equipment is several years old.
The current system requires that officers remove a memory card from the device and give it to Clouse. He then uploads video from the card to his computer. That is inefficient and not reliable.
Clouse proposed purchasing a Panasonic Arbitrator HD system, the same system used by the Iowa State Patrol. The system includes equipment at the LEC that automatically transmits information from the in-car and body-worn cameras when an officer pulls into the LEC parking lot. It goes to a dedicated server; there are no memory cards. Clouse will be able to access all video, and each officer will be able to access video from his activities.
The officers will have “read only” access once the video is in the server.
Cost to replace all the Digital Ally equipment is $34,078, including all components.
The city council approved the purchase to come from the general fund balance or the Local Option Sales and Service Tax (LOSST) fund if the purchase qualifies as infrastructure. City clerk Diane Kennedy is in the process of preparing a budget amendment for the current year; the purchase will be included.
The Greene County sheriff’s office may purchase the same equipment to replace its Digital Ally equipment. There would be a cost savings to the city of $3-$4,000 if that happens, as the cost of the server would be shared.
According to Clouse, the department buys an in-car camera every other year with money from the special Traffic Enforcement Project (sTEP) grants. Once the new equipment is purchased, the sTEP funds will cover cost of replacing the in-car cameras on a regular schedule.
