Cape police department to roll out body-worn cameras in summer

A public forum was held Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Police Department with a focus on the introduction of body-worn cameras for officers. Department crime analyst Cpl. Ryan Droege lead the discussion and said the cameras could be in use by early August if all goes as planned.

Droege emphasized the correlation between �better officers, better city� and the use of body-worn cameras.

Improved evidence for prosecutions and training were the two main things Droege said were taken into consideration before considering introducing the cameras.

�Better training makes better officers,� he said. �And that�s kind of what we�re all about here.�

He said the technology is �not going to fix everything,� but it would be helpful to Cape Girardeau law enforcement.

Cpl. Ryan Droege gives a presentation on body-worn cameras Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Police Department in Cape Girardeau.KASSI JACKSON

Droege said the cameras would attach to the vests of law enforcement officers and can either be initiated manually with a press of a button or automatically activated via Bluetooth from within the patrol car �when certain criteria is met,� such as sirens being turned on.

According to national studies, Droege said, and compared to local statistics through the years, complaints directed at the Cape Girardeau Police Department have dropped to an average of about five a year. But with the implementation of this new technology, he hopes that number decreases even more.

Droege said if there were still complaints, they could be researched much faster with no need for a special investigation, made possible through the availability of captured video.

The cameras, storage and software totaled nearly $154,000, with each body-camera costing approximately $275 � which does include a 1-year warranty, he said.

The presence of body-worn cameras, according to Droege, would also improve behavior, which he described as human nature.

Breita Church listens to Cpl. Ryan Droege during his presentation on body-worn cameras Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Police Department in Cape Girardeau.KASSI JACKSON

�If you have a camera going, people act more civilly. It�s just the way we�re wired,� he said. �That�s why in a store, you put up a security camera. It doesn�t matter if it�s working or not. In your mind, you�re on camera. You will act differently.�

Droege also pointed out how the importance of privacy plays into the equation.

With the view of �everything should be recorded so we can see what�s going on,� people didn�t necessarily realize what that meant, he said.

�If everything�s being recorded, that�s a lot of private information; that�s a lot of peoples� private homes; that�s a lot of data being stored,� Droege said.

The camera itself has �unlimited� storage capacity, via cloud storage, he said, and he and only one lieutenant will have access to the stored videos.

Cpl. Ryan Droege, back, speaks to Breita Church during his presentation on body-worn cameras Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Police Department in Cape Girardeau.KASSI JACKSON

Droege said there is no set length of time for how long each video will be stored, but the minimum will be 60 days. Longer storage will depend on the situation and will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

For the time being, body-worn cameras would only be provided to officers on patrol and traffic divisions, because they have the most interaction with the public, he said, with the most face-to-face encounters. This could change in the future, possibly including other divisions such as detectives and jailers, but that would require more money.

He said the body-cameras are to record all law-enforcement encounters, but explained when officers are out and about or just on foot, the body-worn camera will not necessarily be �on� and recording constantly, but they will have a �buffer.�

Before the camera is turned on manually, it will have already recorded the previous 30 seconds of video, he said.

�It�s always on and running. It�s not always actively on and storing [video and audio],� Droege said. �Even though we have unlimited storage in the cloud, that�s still too much video to go through and catalogue, for us to try and dig through to find what we need.�

Cpl. Ryan Droege holds a body-worn camera after his presentation Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Police Department in Cape Girardeau.KASSI JACKSON

Droege said even when the body camera is running, officers do have the option to use their discretion if a certain witness or certain victim says they don�t want to be recorded.

If an officer fails to record a certain encounter that should have been recorded � after the �first six months or so� of training � Droege said that would be handled on a case-by-case basis but doesn�t see that or other technical situations being much of an issue.

�We have a great department of professional officers,� he said. �But no one�s perfect. We all make mistakes; we�re all human. So, we�ll work that out as we go on.�

He said the videos would not be treated like a police report but as an investigative report, which means it is considered closed record.

�Until the case is done, no one can access it,� Droege said.

Cape Girardeau native Breita Church was in attendance Saturday and said hopefully there are no issues, �but it sounds like we�re prepared.�

�I think it just says something that our city is keeping up with technology,� Church said.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3632