Five years after the Vermont State Police first said it was considering body-worn cameras, the force is finally deploying the technology.
The rollout began this month, and is expected to be complete by early December. Troopers at four of the force’s 10 barracks are already wearing the cameras, Mike Manley, state police administrative services commander, said Wednesday.
“It’s been an ongoing project,” he said. “We got what we needed this past year to get us over the finish line and put it all together.”
The Vermont State Police tactical services unit has used body cameras since 2018. But for years, the state police said funding was a barrier in acquiring the cameras for the rest of the troopers.
In 2019, public safety officials claimed that data storage for body cameras would cost them up to $2.5 million, making the investment cost-prohibitive. Later, though, they recalculated the cost and found it would be between $100,000 and $200,000 annually.
Still, as late as this June, state police Capt. Garry Scott told Vermont Public Radio he did not expect to deploy the cameras this year, again citing budget constraints.
On June 23, however, spurred by nationwide protests against police violence, the Vermont Senate signed off on a set of police reforms, including a mandate that the state police begin wearing the cameras by August, pressing the state into action. Funding for the cameras came out of the state police’s $74 million budget for the 2021 fiscal year, which runs through next June.
The hardware cost about $760,000 in total, and it will cost $300,000 more per year to store the many hours of video that the cameras record. That storage figure also includes video for police cruiser cameras, which state police have used since 2000.
Nationwide, many advocates for police reform have called for more widespread use of body cameras as a strategy for police accountability. In Vermont, some of the state’s most high-profile police misconduct cases have hinged on footage captured by body-worn cameras.
But the Vermont ACLU, among others, has emphasized the importance of strict body-camera use policies for police departments, arguing that, without such a policy, the cameras can raise privacy and transparency concerns. In written testimony for S.219, the legislation that mandated body camera use, the organization noted that the bill “lacks any adequate provisions regulating police body cameras.”
“The ACLU of Vermont opposes the use of police body cameras unless they are accompanied by robust, appropriate, and enforceable policies governing their use,” the organization said.
The current statewide policy, crafted by the Law Enforcement Advisory Board in 2016, lacks several of the ACLU’s recommended provisions, such as preventing the use of facial recognition analytics on the footage, and restricting officers’ ability to review the footage before they prepare statements on a use-of-force incident.
The Vermont State Police has its own, more detailed policy for body cameras and audio recordings, which VTDigger obtained and reviewed.
The policy prohibits the use of facial recognition or other automated analytics on the footage “without appropriate judicial review.” It also requires officers to obtain recorded verbal consent from civilians if cameras are recording in a location with a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” such as a home.
The policy does not restrict pre-statement review by officers, however, nor does it limit use of the cameras for recording protected speech or gathering political intelligence.
In September, lawmakers directed the Vermont Criminal Justice Council to craft a new statewide body-worn camera use policy, in a new bill, S.124, which also placed a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement.
By January 2022, law enforcement agencies statewide will be required to follow the new policy, according to the legislation, though there is no clear timeline for the policy to be drafted.
That statewide policy “is still in the works,” Manley said. “For now, the policy we have we think is appropriate.”
The Vermont State Police has contracted the company WatchGuard to provide the cameras and storage. The rollout has gone “pretty smoothly,” Manley said.
Once troopers have their cameras, they will be required to have them running anytime they make an enforcement stop, or come into contact with a civilian while on duty.
Read the story on VTDigger here: After five years of delays, Vermont State Police deploy body-worn cameras.