The Ins and Outs of Body Cameras

STARKVILLE and LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Across Mississippi, more and more law enforcement agencies are requiring their officers to use body cameras.

Now, a national organization is asking the State to standardize how they use them.

Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi released a report, highlighting what they call, the lack of uniformity in body camera regulations.

“This will charge the device and it will upload the information to the server,” says Starkville Police Public Information Officer, Brandon Lovelady.

That’s what Starkville Police Officers do after every shift.

They dump their body cam video into a server, where it stays for a certain amount of time.

“It can be viewed by the officer, as well as the supervisor, as well as me. So, but yeah, we maintain those videos for at least 45 days and if it’s a DUI, or any kind of a domestic crime, we try to preserve those videos for at least a year,” says Starkville Police Chief Frank Nichols.

The average lifespan for body cam video at the Louisville Police Department is 30 days.

“The video cameras that we’re using have 16 gigabytes of memory and when the officers are only running the camera when they are in contact with the public. Most of the time, it’s only necessary to download it about once a month. They get about that much run time out of it,” says Louisville Police Chief L.M. Claiborne.

The video lifespan is different for both departments, but one thing that’s not different, is how their body and patrol car cameras work together.

“Chances are, if the officer encounters you and he’s within sight of, straight-line sight of his patrol unit, there’s probably two cameras running at the same time, but then, if he’s out of sight of his unit, inside of someone’s home, or business, or something, then it’s just a body camera,” says Claiborne.

Claiborne says each department adopts its own rules for handling video evidence, and Chief Nichols believes it would be hard to create a “one size fits all” policy statewide.

“You’ll find out that most of the agencies that are accredited, they have a similar policy, but not all agencies are accredited and those ones that are not accredited, you know, they wouldn’t have the same policies I would, because they might not have the resources that Starkville Police Department has, so I think it’s a resource thing.”

Both police departments say body cams are very important because they provide transparency with the public and safety for the officers.