BLACKFOOT – The Bingham County Sheriff’s office now has the ability to capture hard evidence on every arrest through new body camera technology.
“The body cameras are $800 apiece, and we bought 28 of them for the sheriff’s office, and 28 for the city police department,” Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland said.
A grant from the Department of Homeland Security paid for the cameras and the server where all of the video will be stored.
“Say they’re on a foot pursuit with a guy – all that’s on body cam. When the guy goes to court, and he says, ‘I didn’t do this’ or ‘I didn’t do that,’ it’s all on the camera,” Rowland said.
The body camera records both audio and video. A red light on the device indicates it’s recording and when the officers are done capturing video, they can assign the video to a crime category.
“There are several different categories. There’s DUI, domestic, field interview, test – whatever we want to classify the video,” Rowland said.
Deputies are required to have the camera on as soon as they get out of their vehicles. Rowland said they must be on when officers make contact with the public.
Rowland said the new cameras will benefit officers and the public in several ways.
“It means less court time for the officers and less prosecution time for the prosecutor’s office,” Rowland said. “It saves the public money, and it saves tax dollars.”
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