Simi Valley Council goes forward with Police Body Cams
By Debra Tash
At their September 28 2015 meeting the Simi Valley City Council explored funding to obtain body cameras for its police force. With the wave of anti-police rhetoric and violence departments across the nation are implementing the use of body cameras on their officers to protect the public and themselves.
It’s not just the cost of the cameras, which range in price and design, or that each presents a different field of vision/perceptive of an incident as you can see from just a few of the examples below.
Different Designs
Field of vision of the recording varies
It is the cost of data storage for the recordings made using the cameras. Also it’s just not the cost of keeping the data, it’s the cost of keeping that data intact and secure. Another long term expense will be ongoing training for new officers and seasoned officers needing a refresher course.
Council Member Mike Judge, being a police officer, had the most questions for the presenters. He wanted to know if the cameras would be activated automatically when the officer went on call. He commented that he felt: “When someone’s being filmed they behave better.”
The department is not ready to implement a body camera program in Simi Valley. However they are ready to explore funding options for acquiring the equipment and maintaining the program.
The council voted unanimously to go forward and for the department to seek funds through Federal grants and civil assets fortitude. Civil asset fortitude occurs when private property is seized after having somehow been linked to criminal activity. The owner of that property may have not any involvement in the criminal activity.
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Debra Tash is Editor-in-Chief of Citizensjournal.us, past president for Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, business executive and award-winning author, residing in Somis.
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