He said he agreed to the deal in June for 500 cameras, which the Sheriff’s Office expects to receive in the next two weeks and deploy by December. It would have been earlier, he said, but the manufacturer had supply chain issues.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office is the largest law enforcement agency in Louisiana without body cameras, and has faced calls for more transparency amid excessive force allegations and wrongful death lawsuits in recent years. More than half of the state’s 64 sheriffs, and almost every large police department, equip deputies with cameras.
Advocates say cameras provide important evidence about how officers enforce the law and, in some instances, break it. Until now, Lopinto, whose office has a $148.3 million budget this year, has said the agency could not afford them.
“We never refused to use cameras. Cameras are a way of the future,” Lopinto, a Republican, said in a Facebook livestream discussion produced by the Jefferson Parish Democratic Executive Committee. “I just couldn’t do that in my first three years [in office]. We didn’t have the money.”
Lopinto said the cameras will be deployed in phases as deputies are trained. He said younger deputies are excited to use the cameras, the older ones a bit more reluctant.
Advocates say body cameras can help build court cases against people whom officers arrest, with recordings showing suspects’ actions before and while they are being taken into custody. They also have been used to hold officers accountable for unjust arrests and police brutality.
Asked whether he would use the recordings against deputies suspected of misconduct, Lopinto said, “I’m not afraid to put one of my deputies in jail. I hire human beings. Sometimes they do it right; sometimes they do it wrong.”
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