Three years after the codification of a landmark police reform law aimed at increasing accountability in Massachusetts law enforcement agencies, the Edgartown Police Department is looking to modernize its approach to ensuring public safety.
The department is looking for funding for a five-year program that will outfit officers with body cameras.
If approved and executed, Edgartown would be the first Vineyard town to equip its officers with the tech, although it would not be the first to look into the possibility.
The purpose, Edgartown Police Chief Bruce McNamee tells The Times, is to get on board with the greater trend throughout the country, where law enforcement agencies are rapidly adopting the new equipment.
An investigation by the Police Executive Research Forum, using data from late October 2022 to the spring of 2023, has found that as of last year, 82 percent of U.S. law enforcement agencies had body cameras for at least one of their officers.
Since its large-scale implementation in the states around 2014, the practice of fitting cops with cameras while on duty has grown exponentially, with law enforcement professionals citing the need to increase departmental transparency and accountability for both police officers and members of the public.
For many police agencies, reinvigoration of that effort came at the heels of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who had been captured on other officers’ body cameras ignoring Floyd’s pleas for his life while kneeling on Floyd’s body.
The Act Relative to Justice, Equity, and Accountability in Law Enforcement in the Commonwealth, known as the police reform law, was signed by former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker months later. In the legislation, state lawmakers called for, among other things, the creation of the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission, that has the authority to independently investigate police misconduct and certify or decertify law enforcement personnel.
It also featured a near ban on facial recognition, and the creation of a law enforcement body camera task force, charged with drafting recommended regulations for the acquisition and use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement throughout the state. Included in those responsibilities are minimum requirements and standards for storage and transfer of body cameras’ audio and video recordings.
This year’s proposal marks the second time the Edgartown department has sought funding to implement the camera technology. In 2021, the request was quashed following the review of the item by Edgartown’s financial committee. At the time, town officials determined that it’d be best to table the proposal in consideration of competing funding requests, and uncertainties stemming from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, town administrator James Hagerty explained to The Times.
Still, Edgartown was not the first department on the Island to request funding for such a program. In 2018, Massachusetts State Police began assigning body-worn cameras and vehicle-mounted cameras to its troopers.
In 2021, Oak Bluffs voters approved the transfer of $22,625 from the town’s free cash to fund the first year of a five-year initiative, which consisted of the lease or purchase of 18 body cameras for the Oak Bluffs Police Department. Also included was funding for camera-mounting devices, software, licenses, and file-sharing services. Though Oak Bluffs received the greenlight to begin the process of implementation, the town’s police force has not yet fitted their officers with the approved technology.
According to Oak Bluffs Police Chief Jon Searle, who was appointed to the position in 2022, a year after former Chief Erik Blake brought the request to town meeting floor, the town seemed to have “lost its appetite” for the body-camera program shortly thereafter. Searle cited town officials’ worry about being able to effectively manage the audio and video data while experiencing a staffing shortage. Unlikely to pursue the program further until the town shows more interest, Searle noted that his officers are overwhelmingly “pro-camera.”
Edgartown’s latest proposal, which has not yet officially made it onto this year’s annual town meeting warrant, requests $140,000 to fund the new five-year program. Though specifics of how the department will be tackling various complexities that come with the initiative — such as increased labor needs and changes to current officers’ working conditions — have yet to be hammered out, McNamee notes the importance of getting the ball rolling in order to keep up with the times.
“I think everybody in the profession understands that it’s an inevitability — not a bad one,” McNamee said, adding that with the new technology comes the ability to capture not just crime for evidentiary purposes or recordings that could prove crucial in internal affairs investigations, but also highlight some of the good work EPD officers do while out in the community on a daily basis.
“Will people support it? I don’t know,” the chief said, acknowledging that there are likely people in the community who’d possibly vote against it: “No one wants to be recorded.”
McNamee added that if the funding is approved, the department will continue to look into the best practices and policies for the new program that would assuage concerns citizens have during the time of implementation.
The appetite for the police department to find things to spend taxpayer dollars on, is never ending. They want our department to have everything a big city department would have. totally unnecessary here. Unfortunately the police department is not alone in it’s appetite for new toys and gadgets at the expense of the taxpayer.
I’m confused. Are you for the police or against them? It seems you’re just against anything and everything.
The appetite for the police department to find ways to be transparent is never ending….
Cops don’t want cameras, we the people do.
A lot of cops are jail because of cameras.
I agree Bob. When was the last time an officer was charged with assault on a criminal? The chief is from off-Island and is using big city standards in a small town. I remember when Bob Fiske wrote a false report while working for Tisbury. He was fired. A cruiser a year is too much as well.
Yeah. That’s just what we need on the Vineyard. Body cameras. What’s next? Cop City?
The cops need cameras to document their work. All of it.
Might not be a bad idea for the summer.
I like it. Gives a sense of transparency. You never know what
is going to happen. In life and death situations where
reactions are quick it’s good for the public to know what
really happened. Or for that matter the police or the citizen
involved. For the right wingers, it might even catch an
“illegal” attacking a police officer and the officer shooting back.
We wouldn’t want to have a bunch of liberal lawyers claiming
the “illegal” was trying to run away, and sue the police department
for millions of taxpayer dollars , right ?
I trust the island police to do the right thing, and they should be able
to prove it. If they don’t do the right thing, I want justice to be served.
The camera doesn’t lie or think something happened that didn’t.
As former LE, I was against cameras before is was for them. The amount of false claims against police dropped significantly and conviction rates increases dramatically.
Interestingly enough it’s now the “left wingers” who are attacking the use of police body cameras as some sort of violation of one’s rights.
https://www.aclu-nj.org/en/press-releases/legislation-unfairly-allowing-police-view-camera-footage-write-reports-signed-law
The more people see what a police officer has to deal with the better the community relations are. Keller, you are correct that transparency is best.
If you break the law you should be held accountable and if deportation is a legal part of that accountability, so be it.
The link you shared contradicts your claim that “left wingers are attacking the use of body cameras”. You clearly either did not read the article, or are intentionally misrepresenting the content. The objection isn’t about the use of body cameras, it’s about viewing the footage.
Ok Carla how about this one… a quote from the below link
“The ACLU sent an 11-page letter in early September to federal officials, criticizing the adoption by the LAPD of body cameras for use by the city’s police officers and urged them that the program should be defunded. The ACLU letter indicated that the use of body cameras by the LAPD would make automatic recordings of events occurring to the public, thus violating a person’s right to privacy and the practice would undermine “the goals of transparency, accountability and creation of public trust that body-worn cameras should serve.””
https://www.sevenslegal.com/criminal-attorney/aclu-responds-body-cameras-lapd/413/
You see Carla, sometimes when people get what they wish for it doesn’t always work out like they thought. More convictions and less police complaints. Not what they thought. Now the very same people who were calling for them are now asking for the program to be defunded.
Going back to your objection to my post, I didn’t misrepresent anything. The leftist progressives objected to officers using the video to write accurate reports depicting the arrest that couldn’t be picked apart by defense attorneys. The same defense attorneys who were calling for body cameras. So now the tool that they wanted is being used against them crushing their win ratio is now unjust because their clients are now being found guilty more often. Yup, makes perfect sense to a liberal.
Carl- I am not so sure that using the ACLU
as an “liberal” organization. They seem to
argue cases based on constitutional
merit. You know, that document that the MAGA
republicans cite as the way to govern.
Also, despite what Jackie has said here
about liberal anti semites, I think we can safely
say that the nazi party of America is not a bunch
of liberals marching around with torches chanting
“Jews will not replace us” — Yet the ACLU famously
defended their right to march through
Skokie, IL. Which at the time had the highest
concentration of Holocaust survivors in the U.S
Carl– good to see you step in — I get it that
you know about this one on a personal level.
The count on the first 2 comments on this thread
are 1 to 1 — A conservative concerned about cost,
a liberal concerned about the supposed police state.
I will address both — just based on this article
a body can cost about $250 dollars a year,
–68 cents a day to purchase and operate —
Let me put that into perspective with one of my
pet peeves— The average police cruiser in the U.S
uses .4 to .6 gallons of fuel per hour while it
idles. That’s about 16 minutes worth of idling per day.
… https://www.government-fleet.com/128326/fla-police-fleet-slashes-idle-fuel-costs-by-26#:~:text=According%20to%20Derive%2C%20the%20average,but%20at%20a%20lower%20RPM.
Now, I have no problem when they are responding to
an emergency, or on the side of the roads monitoring
traffic. But I recently had 2 cruisers on a 58 degree day
come on my property to escort a woman to get her stuff
from my guest house during a legal separation preceding
a divorce. The police were as professional and courteous as
could possibly be.
But they were there– 2 cruisers– for 45 minutes with
both cruisers running.
Sorry to get off topic, but—- But the money
is insignificant, and can easily be made up.
And, Martha– when you are in a public place
your picture is taken every few minutes. If anything
goes awry, the police have access to it all.
Don, another good point. When I was “on the job” I never understood other cops leaving their cars idling accept when the overhead lights were activated such as directing traffic since the old light bars would drain your battery very quickly. We actually had a kid jump in a steal the idling car. I always turned it off and locked it.
I’ll also say that you could save lots of money when outfitting new marked vehicles. Tamp down the artwork, less emergency lighting which is very expensive and truly blinding to the motoring public, less computerized fixed equipment that costs so much to upkeep and install. Most of the computerized tasks can be done on an iPad.
“The more people see what a police officer has to deal with the better the community relations are”.
What the cameras are showing us is how really bad some cops are.
You can’t deny that a body camera protects law enforcement and the public from any false claims.
Sounds like a good idea to me. I have seen some crazy things happen that wouldn’t have happened if the camera was rolling.
Tim– good point. If an officer knows that their camera is
rolling, or even if some other camera from say
a private citizen is rolling, they would likely be
a little more aware of doing something stupid.
Just the fact that the camera is present could certainly
change the outcome of the encounter. I would
think more often than not for the better.
I can’t wait for the body cam footage to make it onto YouTube. Like, a MV version of “Cops”. Especially on the 4th of July week. It could become a drinking game….every time some 19 year old with a white belt and a cooler full of white claws gets on tape saying “Do you know who my father is??”, you take a shot.
Brian-
i think you are misinformed about the laws concerning the
dissemination of this data.
But the drinking game is interesting…
How about we drink every time an
orange blob of lard
says “witch hunt” ?
Please Drive responsibly.
Canton police did not have body cameras 1-29-22. Now they wish they had them. FREE KAREN READ!
One problem with relying on body cams is that an officer can always turn it off when they feel like it. There are known cases of this. There are other instances where a police department claimed the footage was supposedly lost or accidentally erased. How convenient for them.
So while it’s a good idea on paper, it has flaws in practice.