LANDOVER, Md. — More police officers in the region will soon be wearing body cameras, as the Prince George’s County police want to start phasing them in this fall.
“We are planning to go operational in October of this year,” said Carlos Acosta, the inspector general for the county police.
He made the announcement during a “Know Your Rights” forum Tuesday night, organized by Sen. Victor Ramirez, D-47.
Acosta told WTOP the county will be using a type of camera made by Panasonic.
“It’s a small, rectangular, black object [that] looks a lot like the back of a cellphone. It will mount to the center of the chest of the officer.”
Acosta said the cameras will be gradually rolled out, likely starting with a couple of police districts.
If the first officers to use them find problems, or things they don’t like about them, tweaks can be made before the next batch of officers receives them.
Acosta said officers will be able to turn the cameras on and off.
“What we’re doing is setting up the right standards that officers know when they should have it on (and) when they’re allowed to turn it off. And frankly, unless the event is over, they’re supposed to articulate why they’re turning it off as they’re turning it off.”
The cost of the program is still not clear, because the department still has to decide how much server space it needs to store the video collected from the cameras and how long to store it.
The Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights in Maryland was recently changed to extend the time a person has to file a complaint against an officer from 90 days to 366 days.
“Certainly we want [to keep the video] that long, so if somebody complains, we can look at the behavior and find out: Is the complaint substantial? Was it recorded on the video or was it not? I think we should keep it longer than that just in case there’s a federal claim. So we’re still trying to hash out how long we have it. The problem being the longer we keep it, the more money we pay for storage. It’s just like parking a car in a parking garage,” Acosta said.
He thinks the body cams will be good for the police department and the public.
“I think it affects behavior on both sides of the camera. Both the officer wearing it and the citizen involved, if they know they’re being recorded, I think people act differently. We’ll find out. I’ve seen some studies that show otherwise, but my belief is it absolutely will affect [behavior] in a positive manner.”
