The City of Soldotna will spend more than $150,000 upgrading the police force's network of body-worn, vehicle and department cameras, a move approved by the city council last week.
It's been about two years since the last time the Soldotna Police Department replaced officers' body-worn cameras. But Police Chief Stace Escott says they've been having a lot of problems. When the department was given the option to renew their software last October, Escott says he hesitated.
"I didn't want to continue throwing good money after bad, essentially, and I felt like we needed to replace this," he said. "It was a tough decision for me because I was new."
Escott became police chief last year after almost two decades with the department. He took the helm from former Chief Gene Meek, who led the last effort to upgrade officer's body-worn cameras. Escott said rollout started last spring, with some flaws.
Among other things, Escott says officers' body-worn and vehicle cameras frequently disconnect from one another. The software sometimes updates in the middle of an officer's call, rendering the technology useless. And cameras record conversations he says officers don't always want the public to hear.
The system also racks up substantial amounts of data by simultaneously activating an officer's body and vehicle cameras. And it's expensive, with annual operating costs topping $33,000.
After deciding to go in a new direction, Escott says the department looked at technology from three companies before landing on BAYCOM/Panasonic. He says the company's system is affordable and does what officers need it to.
With the new equipment, Soldotna police cars will have 360-degree cameras that alert officers when someone approaches the vehicle. Officers will be able to pick whether they want to activate their body-worn camera, their car camera, or both. And the technology has a sensor trigger that will activate an officer's body-worn camera when that officer pulls their gun.
"That's a huge safeguard for me, because oftentimes in those scenarios … if you're pulling your gun, you might not have time to activate your body-worn camera," he said.
Storage for all of the data generated by the new Panasonic system will also be stored locally, or "on prem" by the department.
Council member Jordan Chilson, who works in information technology, says that's a major perk over cloud-based data storage.
"I do see a lot of value in going towards on prem solutions, the, you know, the draw of cloud being the convenience of it, but then they draw you in, and then they capture you with rates to sustain it that are not always sustainable moving forward," Chilson said.
In addition to officers' body-worn and vehicle cameras, the city will also replace cameras in the department's interview and DUI processing rooms with Panasonic products.
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