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Commander Ralph Ennis: Start- <br />up costs can be significant if you're a <br />department of any size. It's important <br />to make a large investment of time up <br />front. Our department's body camera <br />working group met three times per <br />week, working through processes that <br />would be affected at every level. If you <br />don't have every single bureau involved <br />in rolling out body cameras, it can be <br />catastrophic for your agency. <br />John Markovic: Body cameras don't <br />exist in a vacuum. You've got all this other <br />video and audio evidence that can be <br />integrated with body camera recordings <br />and put into the system to query. In <br />theory, you could develop an algorithm <br />to identify specific individuals and issue <br />an alert. In Montgomery County, they <br />are integrating digital evidence from <br />the police department with video from <br />school buses and public transit. But this <br />is a controversial political issue. <br />Chief (ret.) Tom Manger: We had <br />footage of a shooting of an unarmed <br />African American man, Despite the <br />notion that releasing video would <br />provide clarity to the public as to what <br />occurred during the shooting, it was <br />not helpful in terms of public opinion. <br />People who viewed the video formed <br />vastly differing opinions about what they <br />saw. Those that didn't like or trust the <br />police still felt there was no justification <br />for using deadly force on an unarmed <br />person. Others, including prosecutors, <br />saw it as a lawful shooting, Even though <br />people watching the same video came <br />to differing conclusions, it was priceless <br />in telling us what occurred. There have <br />been numerous less serious cases where <br />if you did not have video you would not <br />get to the truth—even when people are <br />being as honest as they can be—until <br />we were able to look at the video. <br />Chief (ret.) Tom Manger: Data <br />storage—that's the big cost. As you get <br />more cameras and more data, costs <br />can run into the millions. Is there a way <br />that these costs can get cheaper in the <br />future? <br />Commander Ralph Ennis: There is <br />existing technology to deconstruct video <br />files so they take up one-third of the <br />storage space. But there's a lot of money <br />to be made, so companies are unlikely to <br />promote it. <br />John Markovic: BJA's body camera <br />program doesn't currently provide <br />money for data storage. But we are <br />trying to change that because the high <br />cost of data storage is a big disincentive <br />for agencies that want to purchase <br />cameras. <br />Chip Coldren: In Las Vegas, our study <br />found a 37% reduction in civilian <br />complaints and a 25% reduction in use <br />of force, attributable to the introduction <br />of body cameras. And cameras were <br />introduced after the department <br />had participated in three years of <br />Police Body Cameras: What Have We Learned Over Ten Years of Deployment? 1 19 <br />