City Council approves body cameras for police

Today, the Dallas City Council approved a new $3.7 million program that will begin to equip Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers with hosted, cloud storage body cameras.

The contract approved by council today provides for a solution that will reach the 1000 camera purchase goal and includes five years of service. City Council will have budget approval authority over each year of the program through annual appropriations. The costs of the 1,000 cameras is expected to be $825,000 with another $2.9 million designated for a five-year maintenance and support service contract. About $2.7 million of the costs will come from current funds and just over $1 million from 2013 Urban Area Security Initiative Grant funding.

The initial purchase will include 400 cameras purchased over the next few months, with half going to patrol officers and the other half going to officers who work on specialized unit task forces. Officers will be charged with manually turning on their cameras when performing work under the scope of official law enforcement and if employed working off-duty security.

For DPD, the cameras are another technological tool that will enhance the ability to service the citizens of Dallas.

“The capturing of video footage of law enforcement related incidents will help in the investigation and prosecution of crimes by aiding in the documentation of evidence,” said Dallas Police Sergeant Warren Mitchell. “Equally important we believe the cameras will increase the department’s transparency and accountability to the public we serve.”

The Dallas Police Department has more than 3,500 officers serving 343 square miles and 1.4 million citizens. For more information on the department, visit: http://dpdbeat.com/.