Palmer to purchase body, dash cams for its police department

PALMER — At the Palmer City Council meeting on Tuesday, Action Memorandums 20-064 and 20-068 passed along with the consent agenda, allowing Palmer City Manager John Moosey to negotiate and purchase 20 new body cams, 20 new dash cams and other Getac equipment for the Palmer Police Department.

AM 20-064 lists the price of 10 Getac laptops at $33,606.90 and AM 20-068 includes 20 Getac BC-02 body cams, 20 Zero Dark CUD-50 dash cams, a five year warranty and unlimited cloud access for a contract not to exceed $294,515.414. Palmer Police Officers have worn Taser Axon body cameras since 2016, but most of the equipment has been utilized past its use.

“We are very concerned about quite a few things, one is about good performance but also too, liability and protection,” said Moosey. “A lot of it is for the technology advancements on transferring the video back and forth between prosecutors and court, having those available really kind of as a protection for us and the public so I’m very pleased with it. As you know the city of Palmer is very concerned with providing great fair service to our citizens and with body cameras the proof is in the pudding. It’s there and we want to make sure that we have that available.”

The Taser Axon models were delivered in 2015 but not put into use until 2016. Palmer Police Chief Dwayne Shelton said that he expected officers to resist the idea of wearing body cameras, but that what occurred was exactly the opposite.

“Quickly when we rolled them out, all of our officers were really looking forward to it and they got to the point where they love them,” said Shelton. “It’s just good. It’s all around good for the department, the city, the citizens and the officers you know. We’re able to ensure that the citizens are getting the service that they deserve.”

The current models are faulty and have become difficult to work with. Shelton said that officers intend to return from their shift nearly an hour early to begin the process of manually transporting footage from body and dash cams onto a server inside the building and waiting for the footage to upload. While officers intend to leave room at the end of their shift, Shelton said that does not always happen and sometimes pertinent footage may have to wait until the next day. Not only do PPD officers have to manually transfer and upload footage, but evidence technicians must spend hours per day sorting, storing and distributing copies of footage to attorneys.

“It’s my understanding that that has the ability to cut her time that typically spends two to three hours a day doing that down to a few minutes a day and that’s the goal,” said Shelton.

The new Getac system will automatically retrieve and store footage from officers as they come within range of the Palmer Police Department, preventing the necessity of time spent uploading footage. With unlimited cloud space, evidence technicians will no longer have to sort, store and distribute physical copies of footage.

“She can give you a link so you can go online and boom there it is,” said Shelton.

Although PPD officers do not view body cam footage until prosecution has completed, Shelton said that he and his Commander may deem footage as beneficial for training and use the recorded incident to educate officers. Shelton said that the use of body cameras and dash cameras is relatively new in Alaska, but that it provides a benefit to both the PPD officers and citizens of Palmer to record police interaction effectively.

“We’re hoping decrease the amount of times that the officers are spending inside the station handling that evidence, so it’s handled a lot more efficiently,” said Shelton. “We’re getting more consistent, reliable evidence and were able to then spend more time out on the streets and handling cases so I think overall it’ll be a benefit to the public.”