In just the past two weeks alone, at least 10 outside police agencies and numerous media outlets, some from as far as Tokyo, have visited the Evesham Township Police Department asking about one thing — body cameras.
It was in July that the E.T.P.D. first outfitted all 48 of its patrol officers with body cameras to record every instance of an officer interacting with a member of the public from start to finish.
Now nearly two months later, at the Sept. 16 meeting of the Evesham Township Council, E.T.P.D. Chief Christopher Chew gave an update of how the cameras, and so far nearly 10,000 recorded videos, have been integrated into the department’s day-to-day operations.
Chew said interest from other municipalities and media outlets has spiked since the national debate started regarding the death Michael Brown, who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9.
“The moral of the story is, they wanted to know why and how we were in front of the Ferguson situation — how did we come up with the ideology of implementing the body cameras,” Chew said.
All recorded videos are automatically uploaded to evidence.com, a cloud-based storage system used by agencies such as the CIA where no officer can tamper with the videos.
The cameras also record with a 30-second loop so events 30 seconds prior to the activation are included in any videos.
Videos are then kept for 90 days, 60 more than required by state law, while those videos needed for evidence are saved permanently, along with major crimes such as homicide and sexual assault.
Chew said the cameras have already been used to exonerate three of the four officers in the E.T.P.D. who had demeanor complaints filed against them by citizens since the implementation of the body cameras.
Demeanor complaints are the complaints that citizens can file when they believe the actions of an officer were not proper, whether it be a raised voice, not following proper protocols or use of excessive force.
“We had four of them since the implementation, three of them immediately, just by video alone, said that the officer followed proper policy procedures,” Chew said.
Conversely, Chew said that in one of the four demeanor complaints filed against an officer since the implementation of the cameras, the video showed the officer in question to have acted improperly.
“It showed what we want it to show,” Chew said. “If our officers are not acting with policies, we’ll take the proper measures to discipline them and retrain them. It does show both sides.”
According to Chew, the department and township have also benefited simply by purchasing the cameras before the recent rise in demand from other municipalities and departments across the country.
Evesham’s initial investment just a few months ago was $55,000 through capital bonding, yet Chew said if the township were to purchase the same equipment and software now it would cost more than $100,000.
“That’s how much it has significantly increased over the past few weeks,” Chew said. “The rise in demand, rise in costs, so luckily we were out front of this at the onset and saved the taxpayers in excess of $50,000 right off the get go.”
During the meeting Chew also showed several videos taken by the cameras.
One video featured an officer clearly giving proper notification before releasing a police dog into a building, and another showed an officer approaching a combative man with an already bloodied face in the lobby of the Evesham Township Municipal Building, with the officer eventually tackling and cuffing the man.
Chew said that when the individual woke up in the hospital, he at first believed the police caused his injuries, until police were able to show him a video.
“There is a classic example of in the past it would have been a he-said, she-said, and it would have been very tough to prove or disprove,” Chew said.
