Altona Police Officers Don Body Worn Cameras

Frontline officers with the Altona Police Service (APS) are now using Body Worn Cameras (BWCs) to record their interactions with the public while performing their duties.

APS has entered into an agreement with American-based firm, Visual Labs Inc., to provide a subscription-based app and cloud data storage service for about $5,000 a year. The app, which has been downloaded on to each of the officers' service-issued cell phones, will use the device's camera to record their encounters. Police chief, Perry Batchelor, says this approach eliminates the need to purchase and incorporate another piece of equipment on to an officer's uniform and doesn't require expensive upgrades.

"As soon as an officer hooks into the WiFi here at the office, the video is uploaded to the cloud automatically so there's no allegations or other innuendo of any kind of video evidence tampering or anything like that. It's a very secure system," he added.

Meantime, the police chief says the decision to fully implement the use of the BWCs wasn't made lightly and admits this has been on his mind for several years. Discussions, however, intensified during the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis followed by several allegations of what Batchelor calls "a heavy-handed use-of-force" by police officers throughout Canada.

Further to that, Batchelor says thorough research was conducted into equipment and service providers. Additionally, other police agencies where the cameras are already in use were contacted and their policies and procedures around the use, storage and distribution of video were consulted when developing a document for APS. Finally, Batchelor says leadership worked with staff to ensure there was buy-in. "The officer buy-in is not a problem," he said, "the officers at the Altona Police Service all see the benefit."

According to a portion of the Altona Police Service's Policy Manual, the purpose of using BWCs is to provide additional evidence for prosecutions; augment current note-taking practices and improve evidence documentation; increase public trust and confidence; increase police accountability; increase transparency; provide early-case resolution in prosecutions, and provide real-life training examples.

Batchelor adds it's also about officer safety.

The app contains GPS which he says provides another layer of protection by laying out both officer location and driving behaviour at any given time.

As well, Batchelor hopes the cameras will reduce use-of-force incidents by and against the police by affecting the behaviour of individuals who are aware of the recording in progress.

Additionally, the policy indicates the BWCs will be used to reduce "frivolous complaints about alleged police misconduct, and increase the efficiency of resolution of complaints against police."

While Batchelor says APS isn't overwhelmed by complaints against its officers, he says the cameras can quickly prove or disprove those allegations.

"We did have an incident not too long ago where an officer was falsely accused," explained Batchelor, noting there was media coverage on that particular incident. He went on to say that the officer was eventually cleared by the Independent Investigation Unit, and the claim was proven as false. "The amount of stress that the officer was under, it took eighteen months to get him cleared," said Batchelor. "False allegations or not, (they) are allegations and you're ultimately placed in a position where you have to prove your innocence."

Batchelor adds being able to quickly produce video evidence in this scenario could result in municipal cost-savings as well, adding the Town of Altona paid nearly $10,000 legal fees as a result of the false allegations. He noted this cost could have been much greater had the officer been suspended with pay combined with the overtime costs to cover the suspended officers' shifts.

"When weighing out the pros and cons, there were a lot more pros to issuing the BWCs," added Batchelor.