By Teri Knight, News Director
Rice County Sheriff Troy Dunn is the President of the Minnesota Sheriffs Association. They’ve been working on police reform and body camera policies. With that in mind, Dunn went before the Rice County Commissioners who have signaled support for the purchase of 50 of them. He said, “hopefully by the end of the year we will have all of our Patrol staff and our Correctional staff wearing Body Worn Cameras (BWC)“. As for the added evidence technician and storage cost, he said, “initially I was going to try to purchase all these items in 2021 and now with the savings that we are having now with the reimbursements toward staffing, we can move some of these
monies over so that we can purchase these body cameras and the storage”. He’s speaking of dollars reimbursed due to covid-19. They’re looking at about $135,000 for all of it with a $10,000 annual fee for maintenance. The system they will utilize for the body cams is one they’re already using for their squad cameras, “so this will replace the microphone that the Deputies wear on their person and so it will sync up to the video camera in the squad car so it’s going to be a lot easier. It gets downloaded into the same system”. In 2021 they’ll hire a part-time person to handle data requests and redaction. Dunn has been looking at purchasing body cams for about five years. He said the technology has improved considerably as well as the battery power, which went from 6 hours to 12 hours of constant use and there’s a portable charger that goes in the squad. A public hearing will be held regarding the use of body cameras.
NPD gets some resistance on BWCs from Nfld Council
As for Northfield police officers and body cameras, during their work session on budgeting, councilors were asked where they might like to see other dollars spent. C. Nakasian wanted dollars for trees to address Climate Action. C. DeLong commented, “I would like to see you try to get body cameras in there (city budget). I think that’s an important aspect in this day and age. Our comparable cities have them”. He said it works out to be about $4 per Officer per shift and would provide more of the “story” of an incident than a bystander’s phone. C. Zweifel was not in favor of them saying she’d done some research, “I read some articles, some of which came from the same source as the information that’s in the Chief’s report from the PEW Foundation about body cams not doing what we think they’re doing in our communities and whether or not they’re worth the expenditure, especially in a small community”. Privacy seemed to be the most concerning to some councilors. Chief Elliott said Minnesota is one of the few
states that has state laws governing the use of body cameras and the data recovered, enacting them in 2016. He said, “all of that data is private and presumed private”. Every other year the State requires an audit, “to make sure that the agency is following the laws relating to the body worn camera policy and that they’re using them properly”. Lexipol is a highly regarded risk management firm for First Responders. They are currently assisting the Northfield Police Department’s efforts to update their Policy and Training manual. Elliott reiterated the importance of tailoring a policy to meet the community’s expectations. He provided a detailed memo to the Council which is here: 2 – PD Council report on BWCs 2020 There will be a public hearing before council and the public before an implementation, which Elliott would like to see in the 2nd quarter of 2021.
First Responder Day
Tomorrow is the 19th anniversary of 9-11. The Faribault Fire Department has held an annual ceremony each year and will do so tomorrow. Chief Dustin Dienst said the ceremony, as usual, will be held outside in front of the fire station by the flagpole starting at 7:46am. There is plenty of room to spread out and they will take the needed precautions due to the pandemic. Also tomorrow, First Responders in the Northfield Community are being thanked by Northfield Community Church and Stir Confections with a free cup of coffee and dessert tomorrow between 11am and 5pm.
