Bodycams come to KCPD in ‘good first step’ after years of pressure by local activists
Kansas City police have equipped 340 patrol officers with body worn cameras with another 475 expected to be ordered soon, said police spokesman Sgt. Jacob Becchina during a news conference.
The department has equipped all of its patrol officers in the Central, Shoal Creek and North patrol divisions so far, Becchina said outside Police Headquarters in downtown Kansas City Wednesday morning.
With the Board of Police Commissioners’ approval Tuesday to order the additional cameras, the department will equip all of its remaining patrol officers in the “coming days and months,” he said. The schedule calls for all patrol officers to have body cameras by March.
“It has been a hot topic since this summer for sure,” Becchina said, referencing demonstrations ignited across the metro area following the death of George Floyd earlier this summer.
For years, community leaders have been calling for a body camera program as a way to hold the city’s police officers accountable.
“It’s absolutely a good first step, not only for the police department, but especially for the community and holding those who serve our community accountable,” said Justice Horn, a community activist who helped lead the protests on the Country Club Plaza.
“This is why a number of Black organizations and nonprofits fought for bodycams, not only just for, not only for bodycams, but the policies that would go behind it to hold those accountable,” he said.
The equipping of Kansas City police officers with body cameras has been in the works for at least a couple of years, Becchina said, beginning with requests for information and proposals about two summers ago.
In September 2020, KCPD said patrol officers would be outfitted with body cameras starting this year and that officers would undergo training.
“We wanted this system to be compatible with our in-car camera system so that the dashcam system and the body worn camera system could work well together with each, other,” Becchina said.
The department purchased Panasonic-branded cameras from Turn-Key Mobile in Jefferson City. The cost for each unit runs between $700 and $800, he said.
“There were high profile events throughout our city, throughout the country, that raised the scrutiny level of law enforcement and police throughout our country,” Becchina said.
“The body worn camera system was something that our community asked for,” Becchina said. “It was something we heard them over and over again saying they wanted. It was a priority for us. We just lacked a funding source.”
In June, Kansas City police announced they received a $1 million donation from the DeBruce Foundation, along with another $1.5 million from other community partners to fund a body camera program.
In developing its program, Kansas City worked with community members, and local and federal prosecutors during monthly meetings to help develop a policy about such things as retention and release of the videos, how they would play into investigations and when cameras would be turned on.
“That policy is in the works right now, but we didn’t want to wait for a policy,” he said. “When we started getting body worn cameras, we deployed them out into the street.”
The policy is being drafted now and shared with the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police. It is expected to be presented to the board of police commissioners next month for its approval, Becchina said.
“We are pretty far down the road with that policy,” he said, adding that it should be very similar to how the department handles video from dash cameras. “We are not reinventing the wheel here.”
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas later tweeted that this was a “good step” but that policy should have already been drafted since the department has known the body cameras “have been coming for a while.”
“Policy should have been up for a board vote yesterday, if not before,” he said on Twitter.
“We must get it right.”
Currently, officers are expected to turn on the camera whenever they come into contact with a person on a call for service, likewise if they get out of a car on a pedestrian check or a car stop, Becchina said.
“It is a sacred public trust to be out there to be a law enforcement officer to be a sworn member of any police department to have the powers to enforce the law, to arrest someone, to use force against someone to bring a situation under control up to and including deadly force,” he said. “And the public deserves to have officers that are held accountable when they are carrying out those duties of that sacred public trust.”
After the initial purchase, the ongoing costs will mainly be for storage. The cameras themselves are expected to have a lifespan of five to seven years.
The department currently stores all of its video for one year, but that could change based on the amount of footage coming in from bodycams, Becchina said.
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 12:43 PM.
