Three police departments in Warren County to purchase officer body cameras
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Local police departments are looking at getting new equipment after recent events nationwide.
Because of the outcry for the unbiased story of a situation, video footage from body cameras and vehicle dashboard cameras is becoming a critical piece of evidence.
That demand is leading the Western Kentucky University Police Department, Smiths Grove Police Department and the Warren County Sheriff’s Office to begin the process of equipping their officers with body cameras.
These purchases can be extremely expensive, so the purchase process is not a quick one, according to Smiths Grove Police Chief Jason Franks.
“Cameras are good because they improve accountability and transparency. They’re ideal for court, for collection of evidence, but also for accountability. And not just for the police, for the public and those interactions as well,” said Franks.
The camera footage takes the guesswork out of figuring out what happened in a situation and puts officers’ actions out in the open for the public to see if needed, according to Western Kentucky University Police Department’s Tim Gray.
“Our actions, our behaviors, the measures that we take to help keep our community safe. Those are the things that the public wants to see, they deserve to see what it is that we’re doing, why we do what we do and how is that helping protect them and protect our officers. But that’s also another reason that we want to implement body cameras, because it does, in fact, protect our officers,” said Gray.
It also can provide evidence in a situation where the truth is not immediately clear.
“A lot of times it’s just that officers word against that civilian’s word and so if you don’t have any physical evidence to go off of, you don’t have any video evidence to back up that civilians account of that situation or the officer’s account, then it really just puts you in a tight bind for you to decipher what took place and what did not take place,” said Gray.
All three departments are working to find which camera system they will use before they make any purchases, so a timeline for the purchase has not yet been set.
