LOUISVILLE, Ky. — If a picture is worth a thousand words, "a video's probably worth a million," according to St. Matthews Police Chief Barry Wilkerson. Since February 1, all 45 officers, including Wilkerson, wear body cameras.
Using magnetic plates, they mount to their uniforms. All it takes is a push of a button and they start recording.
Although pushing the button's a bit of a formality, those cameras are always rolling.
"We can always go back and pull that video," the chief explained. "The only thing it will not do is record audio."
They still gather sound while actively recording. That's automatically triggered whenever an officer turns on their car's emergency lights, also initiating the dashcam.
Putting a camera on a dock either at the police station or in a squad car will charge it and upload any video. It's stored for two years in most cases, but they can keep it longer if it's evidence in an active investigation.
Storage for the millions of minutes of video is what's expensive.
Over five years, the chief expects the cameras to cost anywhere from $360,000 dollars to $400,000 dollars, with the equipment costing $60,000. Their pilot is partially funded through a DOJ federal grant for small, rural or tribal police departments.
Despite the cost, Wilkerson wants the cameras to stay.
"I think it's important that the community is seeing what we're doing," he said. "I think it's important that they know what our officers are doing. I think in those situations, especially critical incidents, we have good documentation of exactly what's happened."
To handle the extra video records, and the expected open records requests the department may receive, the chief mentioned a new record-keeping position is opening soon.
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