58°
“Good police work will benefit from such recordings and improper police work will be discovered before it becomes a community-wide issue,” lawyer Eric Daigle wrote in a white-page report distributed to Fairfield Police on Friday, Dec. 19.
Much of the evidence used to support that opinion is based on the success of police cruiser dash cameras, which Deputy Police Chief Christopher Lyddy says the department has seen first-hand on a unit received as a part of a DUI state grant six years ago.
However, despite strong public and legal support for the new police technology of body cameras, negatives -- sometimes serious ones -- still exist.
For Lyddy, the biggest threat is procedural, in that all body cameras must be turned on manually by an officer, while dashcams are activated by the same switch used to turn on a cruiser’s emergency lights.
“If we choose to roll these out, it would be at the officers discretion to turn [the camera] on,” Lyddy said. The department would need to develop a procedure, he said, however, it would not be mandatory for an officer to turn on a camera.
“I don’t want my officer to be going for his body cam when he should be going for his gun,” said Lyddy.
Another issue surrounding the body cameras involve an officer’s personal privacy, Lyddy said.
“We don’t want cameras on while an officer is using a restroom,” he said. Fairfield police also worry about the mistaken recording of private conversations in locker rooms when a camera hasn’t been turned off, according to Lyddy.
In the next six weeks or so, according to Lyddy, the Fairfield Police Department will make a final decision on which device it would like to use for a pilot program.
The program will include 12 cameras, funded by a corporation that has worked with the department in the past on a similar program. Use of the cameras will be encouraged but not mandatory, Lyddy said.
A successful pilot could lead to full implementation and roll out by July 1, 2016, after budgetary procedures are met, he said.
As of now, for Lyddy, the trials of body cams have shown that the benefits outweigh the negatives.
“Our No. 1 consideration is the evidentiary value,” Lyddy said. “Our No. 2 is officer protection. We do a great job in Fairfield, but the aftermath … [officers] may step up their game.”
The Fairfield Police Department is testing the use of body cameras. Read more about it here on the Daily Voice.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Fairfield and receive free news updates.
