Fairfax County police propose body camera pilot
program
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By Angela Woolsey/Fairfax County TimesTop of Form
Fairfax
County took one step closer to implementing a long-awaited pilot program for
body-worn cameras on Tuesday when Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler
Jr. presented his department’s proposal for such a program to county
supervisors at a public safety committee meeting.
If
approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, the pilot program would
provide a testing ground not only for officers and community members to learn
how the cameras work, but also for Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD)
policies governing their use.
According
to Roessler’s presentation, the proposed 90-day pilot program would involve the
distribution of cameras to two of the department’s eight district stations and
cost an estimated $676,152 to implement, a figure that covers both equipment
costs and the cost of hiring support staff for the program.
The
annual expense of storing data collected by the cameras is projected to be
around $124,000.
Roessler
says that the police department is currently in the final stage of a
procurement process for the cameras with possible vendors and contractors, so
he could not provide specific details on the companies involved or the number
of FCPD officers that will participate in the pilot program.
However,
the police department was responsible for determining length of the pilot
program and selecting the Mount Vernon and Mason District stations as the ones
that would receive cameras.
“They
provide the most diversity in the community and also the diversity of the calls
for service in different environments, urban and a little bit of suburban,”
Roessler said regarding why he chose those two stations.
This is
not the first time that Fairfax County has contemplated using body-worn
cameras, which have emerged as a possible way to improve law enforcement
agencies’ relationship with the communities they serve by increasing
transparency.
Roessler
presented a proposal for using body-worn cameras to the board of supervisors’
public safety committee on June 9, 2015, according to meeting minutes on the
Fairfax County government website.
That
meeting included discussions on policy creation, cost analysis, the technology
involved, and the possibility of a pilot project.
Sully
District station commander Capt. Robert Blakley laid out a draft policy and procedure
for the use of body-worn cameras in a memo to FCPD command staff dated May 17,
2015 and included as an attachment to Roessler’s June 9, 2015 presentation.
According
to the memo, the FCPD was “in the process of testing and evaluating different
body-worn camera (BWC) systems” at the time.
The
draft policy was developed using feedback from community stakeholders as well
as recommendations on best practices put forth in a 2014 report on implementing
a body-worn camera program by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and
U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).
However,
the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors declined to take action, deciding
instead “to wait on legislation working its way through the General Assembly,”
according to an article in The Connection by Tim Peterson.
Supervisors
directed county staff to keep the public safety committee “informed on all
aspects of the body-worn camera issue,” according to the meeting minutes.
Roessler
says that the market for body-worn cameras made them less feasible for Fairfax
County at that time.
“There
were only a few [vendors], and obviously, the cost was much higher back then
for the equipment and the data storage,” the police chief said. “Since that
time, the market has more competition, and the prices have drastically taken a
nose dive.”
Demand
for the FCPD to implement body cameras persisted, though.
A
report published on Oct. 8, 2015 by an ad hoc police practices review
commission included a mandate that Fairfax County police patrol officers wear
body cameras to record all interactions with the public among its 202
recommendations.
The ad
hoc commission was formed on Feb. 20, 2015 by Fairfax County Board of
Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova in response to public frustration over the
county’s handling of an investigation into the 2013 fatal shooting of
Springfield resident John Geer by former FCPD Officer Adam Torres.
Roessler
asked the county to initiate a request for proposals (RFP) during the public
safety committee’s Dec. 13, 2016 meeting. The police department received 16
offers before the RFP period closed on Feb. 28, according to the police chief’s
presentation.
Since
then, in addition to negotiating with the potential vendors, the FCPD has been
developing a new draft policy with guidelines for how officers should use the
body cameras as well as how the footage will be used, accessed, and stored.
Led by
FCPD Fair Oaks District Station Commander Capt. Chantel Cochrane, the
department incorporated Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS)
and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) recommendations as
well as feedback from community stakeholders, such as the Fairfax County NAACP,
into the draft policy.
“This
policy definitely balances privacy interests, civil liberty interests, and the
safety of the officers,” said Cochrane, who previously provided an overview of
the draft policy during the public safety committee’s June 13 meeting.
The
FCPD general order laying out the draft policy can be found on the Fairfax
County board committee meetings webpage, but Cochrane says that it would likely
be tweaked and adapted throughout the pilot program.
To
determine the effectiveness of both the pilot project and the draft policy,
Roessler has brought in American University Department of Justice, Law and
Criminology professors Richard R. Bennett and Brad Bartholomew.
American
University has had a long-standing relationship with Fairfax County police,
putting on trainings and other activities for the department, according to
Bennett, who would be in charge of the pilot project evaluation.
Bennett,
who worked as a patrolman and deputy sheriff in various jurisdictions before
entering academia almost 40 years ago, plans to use an attitudinal survey to
determine whether the body camera pilot is achieving its intended goals, which
include reductions in the use of force by police officers and the number of
community member complaints, as well as an increase in stakeholder and
community satisfaction.
While
the survey will be conducted using random-digit dialing, where participants are
selected using randomly generated phone numbers, Bennett said they can
over-sample certain demographics after Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan
Storck suggested that the survey should particularly focus on how minority
community members are responding to the body camera program.
A
report released by the FCPD in 2016 found that use-of-force incidents involve
black citizens at a rate disproportionate to their overall population in
Fairfax County. 41 percent of the incidents examined in the report involved
subjects who identified as black, while only 8 percent of the county’s 1.1
million people are black.
Springfield
District Supervisor Pat Herrity told Bennett and Bartholomew that the pilot
project evaluation should also examine the impact of body cameras on police
officers.
Multiple
supervisors questioned whether 90 days would be a sufficient amount of time for
researchers to accurately gauge the program’s effectiveness.
Bennett
says that it is difficult to predict in advance how many incidents they will
have to study, but Roessler noted that the pilot could potentially be expanded
if necessary.
“Being
a researcher, I always want more time, but you don’t always have the luxury of
having the amount of time that you’d like,” Bennett said. “We’ll do the best
evaluation that we can in the 90 days.”
According
to Bennett, the pilot project evaluation and policy review could be completed
within 15 days of the conclusion of the pilot program.
Braddock
District Supervisor John Cook, who serves as chair of the public safety
committee, set the Board of Supervisors’ Nov. 21 meeting as a tentative date
for the board to vote on the proposed body-worn cameras pilot project.
If
approved, the program would likely officially start sometime in February, since
the FCPD needs about 100 days to install infrastructure for the technology and
hire additional support staff, according to Roessler.
“We
have 100 days prior to [the launch] where we need to train all of our
officers,” Roessler said. “The equipment for the body-worn cameras is
realistically the same as in-car video, so that’s why I’m comfortable we can
get up and running rather quickly.”