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Columbus, Ohio’s Body Camera Deployment Ahead of Schedule

The city is at least six months ahead of the initial projected release date and officers will begin using the new equipment by the end of June.

(TNS) Columbus, Ohio, expects to finish outfitting police officers with body cameras this summer, six months ahead of schedule.

More than 850 officers already are wearing the cameras, which the city began purchasing in late 2016, and a total of about 1,300 should begin using them by the end of June.

Originally, officials expected the rollout to run through the end of 2018. But implementation "has proceeded very smoothly," Bob Stewart, assistant director in the Department of Public Safety, told Columbus City Council members last week.

Columbus selected WatchGuard Video of Allen, Texas, as its vendor for 1,575 body cameras and accessories in December 2016 after Mayor Andrew J. Ginther promised during his 2015 campaign that he would bring the technology to the Division of Police.

"From the earliest days of his administration, Mayor Ginther has made the implementation of body-worn cameras a top priority because they are an important tool to enhance public safety," said Robin Davis, Ginther's spokeswoman.

The cost of the rollout at that time was expected to be about $9.1 million over five years, including the equipment, training, server space to store video and licensing fees. About $3.6 million was for cameras and $4.1 million for data storage.

So far, the city is ahead of schedule and under budget, said George Speaks, assistant director of public safety.

Last year, the city spent about $4.5 million on body-camera implementation, including about $1.6 million for the cameras and $1.3 million for storage. Running fiber-optic cable to police substations through which officers can upload video was cheaper than expected, costing about $706,000, said Speaks, the department's chief architect for the body-camera program.

"I think the implementation has gone very well," he said. "Part of that is all of the work that we did at looking where cities failed their implementation."

Speaks said the Columbus Police Training Academy also has been able to expedite the training of officers to operate the cameras by using an instructional video, which is getting the cameras to officers faster.

The city initially equipped about a dozen police officers with the cameras. Bike and traffic patrol officers were the first to get them, followed by new police recruits.

As of Tuesday, 869 officers had body cameras, Speaks said.

Last year, the city budgeted to hire seven people to deal with body-camera footage. They included people to deal with records requests to police and additional staff in the city attorney's office to handle a new bank of evidence.

The 2017 budget anticipated the seven workers to have salaries totaling about $326,000.

City Attorney Zach Klein said his office has hired only two of the four workers originally anticipated. Those two have been working on acquiring footage, searching hours-long videos for specific interactions and cutting down the footage for prosecutors, he said. With more cameras coming online, he said, he is working with the administration to determine whether additional staffing is needed.

The camera footage is showing the "unvarnished truth" of what happens in police interactions, Klein said.

"It is a wise investment because it protects the community and police, and having sunshine on this process and police interactions is good for all parties involved," he said.

Speaks said the city is evaluating whether the staff it has hired is sufficient to deal with the additional workload the cameras create. Those jobs could be affected by proposed rules for when body-camera video will be released to the public, which is pending in the legislature.

A bill introduced in November is still in committee, according to the Legislative Service Commission.

Implementing the cameras has mostly been smooth, but some minor problems have cropped up, said Jason Pappas, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9. For example, lights on some cameras wouldn't turn off when officers were supposed to use them in "stealth mode," such as during a SWAT situation, he said.

Police officers, though, are growing accustomed to the new technology, Pappas said.

©2018 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.