News 2012
November 9, 2012, Calgary Beacon
In addition to digital movie cameras being installed in police vehicles, this month Calgary Police are beginning a pilot project to test assets worn cameras. Beginning this week, fifty officers will use the bod cameras. The devices will be used by district patrols, K-9 units and the Traffic Section. Bod worn cameras will be one more way for police to capture evidence. Officials hope they will enhance police officer safety as well as public safety and provide transparency.
Coeur d`Alene police enlist fresh assets cameras
October 12, 2012, KREM News
The Coeur d`Alene Police Department has strapped on bod mounted movie cameras onto every patrol officer. Officer Josh Sterling has been with the Coeur d`Alene Police Department for one year. Sterling turns on his bod mounted movie camera every time he pulls someone over or responds to a call. Sterling is one of forty Coeur d`Alene Patrol Officers now tooled with a third eye. The camera records the job from their perspective. Sterling said he has seen it switch the way people act towards him. «It has switched some of their attitude. Once they know they are being recorded, they kind of have a different view on the way they are going to talk and things like that.»
Body-worn cameras: The truth now has backup
October 23, 2012, PoliceOne.com
While some agencies are still attempting to determine whether or not to install in-car recorders, technology has moved on dramatically with individual digital recording units increasingly available for officers. Law Enforcement being behind the curve on fresh technology is not a fresh phenomenon. For example, the Mauser semi-automatic «broom treat» C ninety six pistol was introduced in one thousand eight hundred ninety six and some law enforcement agencies were still transitioning from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols one hundred years later. Departments considering the introduction of private movie recorders will commonly ask two questions: 1.) Where does the money come from? Two.) Will recorders harm us or help us?
Gilroy PD Acquires VIEVU Body-Worn Cameras with Grant Funding
September 27, 2012, PoliceOne.com
The nineteen clip-on cameras Gilroy police purchased with federal grant funds earlier this summer are presently being tested on several officers in the field while the police union negotiates with the department on fair and «reasonable» guidelines for their use. The LE2 Vievu assets cameras, which were purchased in July with a $15,827 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant at no cost to the Gilroy Police Department, are cell-phone sized devices that clip to an officer`s uniform to capture audio and color movie recordings of incidents, according to Police Sgt. Chad Gallacinao. «We hope to use movie evidence in court prosecutions to make that process run efficiently, to give an accurate depiction of what happened. Hopefully it will reduce potential civil liability and be able to aid us in the reviewing of alleged officer misconduct,» Gallacinao said. After the GPD`s traffic unit implemented five of these cameras a year ago, administration determined to make it a priority and applied for a grant to purchase more. The traffic unit «routinely» use their camera footage as evidence in traffic court, Gallacinao said.
Cop cams debut at University of Iowa
September Eighteen, 2012, The Gazette
During a voluntary search of a University of Iowa student`s dorm room in 2007, UI police officers were abruptly asked to leave. They did, and the student called the UI Public Safety Department a brief time later to complain. She accused the officers of being crooked and of planting drugs in her room. A UI official told the student that, fortunately, there was a quick way to find out. The accused officer at the time was experimenting with a body-worn movie camera.« Let`s check the movie,» the staff member suggested.«(The student) suspended up,» according to UI police Officer Alton Poole. «The movie cameras truly clear up complaints quickly.»
CDA police officers to wear bod cameras
August 29, 2012, KREM News
Patrol officers in Coeur d`Alene will soon begin wearing bod cameras. The equipment, called «point of view» cameras, record what an officer witnesses first-hand. Coeur d`Alene Police studied the cameras for the past two years, and attempted out different types. They eventually selected the Vievu model, which cost $875.00 each, for an investment total of $36,500. The Police Department has been using dash cameras in their patrol cars since the 1990`s. Movie from the dash cams is often used as evidence. Officials determined they needed more coverage because there are times that an officer is not directly in front of their vehicle and not able to record an incident. In a statement, Chief Wayne Longo said the Department now has the capability to review officer contacts with citizens that result in citizen complaints and either address those concerns when valid or protect against false accusations.
Case examine: How one department uses body-worn cameras to protect officers
August 28, 2012, PoliceOne.com
The Campbell Police Department in California serves an area of 6.1 square miles, with an overall population of 40,000 residents, and has forty officers on staff. Since the early 1980s, the department has been an advocate and practitioner of the use of movie recording to preserve evidence of the realities of their encounters with the public. However, in latest years it became apparent that the footage recorded by standard in-car cameras was limited, especially since more and more of those contacts were occurring when officers were away from their vehicles.
Port Washington police wearing little cameras on uniforms
July 27, 2012, TMJ4 News
Police officers in Port Washington are wearing some fresh technology. They have lil’ cameras on their uniforms. The Port Washington Police Department just kicking off using hand-held devices that look like a pager, but there`s a little lens inwards. The advantage to these cameras? They`re mobile. They go with the officer everywhere from minor traffic accidents, to murder investigations, to the courthouse. Port Washington`s Police Chief Kevin Hingiss thinks more criminals will likely plead guilty – since the proof is in the recording.
Product Review: The VIEVU PVR-LE2 body-worn camera
July 26, 2012, PoliceOne.com
It`s been a long time since George Holliday picked up his movie camera and pressed the «record» button, capturing on gauze the arrest of Rodney King. Back then, a relatively finite number of people wielded individual movie cameras, but thirty years after that event we`re surrounded by them. Just about everybody has a cell phone with some form of movie recording capability, and in some cities you can`t stroll down a sidewalk without being captured on one stationary surveillance camera after another, after another. As my good friend Dr. Bill Lewinsky once told me (and I`m paraphrasing here), a videotape is the two dimensional record of a three-dimensional event, and therefore cannot display entirely what happened during a given incident.
How wearable cameras aid law enforcement
July 17, 2012, State Tech Magazine
In Anderson City, S.C., police officers have a fresh high-tech &bashful;accessory that`s helping them close cases: wearable bod cameras. After several months in use, Vievu cameras have helped Anderson City law enforcement gather evidence that led to convictions for domestic violence, driving under the influence and much more.
Police body-worn movie evidence hits the cloud
June Five, 2012, Wired.com
With body-worn movie cameras only being used by little more than six percent of police nationwide, VIEVU is looking to make the technology more affordable and practical by storing movie evidence in the cloud. The service will launch on June 11. For $Ten $20 a month per camera (with ninety days of file storage), «users can store, share, review and access secure and encrypted movie evidence twenty four hours a day,» VIEVU said on Tuesday (and later revised on Wednesday.) «Budgets are enormously taut for law enforcement agencies, and suggesting monthly cloud subscription reduces up-front costs, and permits precincts to ramp usage up or down as needed,» a company spokesman said in an email.
VIEVU LLC`s ‘wearable cameras` described by managing director, Steve Lovell
May 8, 2012, Government Security News
Law enforcement agencies have been benefitting from in-car movie since the early 1990`s in terms of obtaining better evidence, improved conviction rates and the exoneration of officers facing unwarranted complaints. But, it wasn`t until 2007, when VIEVU, LLC, of Seattle, WA, introduced its PVR-LE2 that the idea of «wearable cameras» took off.
Our View: Time to buy lapel cameras for officers
May Two, 2012, The Gadsden Times
Some things are so obviously right that extra discussion of them is a waste of time. They just need to happen. We think the notion of lapel cameras for Gadsden Police Department patrol officers falls into this category. The City Council in January received a recommendation from its Public Safety Committee that it buy sixty eight of the cameras, which record both movie and sound. They would be used by patrol officers anytime they are on calls or interact with the public.
VIEVU receives highest score in US Dept. of Homeland Security`s review of assets worn cameras
March, 2012, US Dept. of Homeland Security
«Security of the movie is excellent … The unit is petite, lightweight, compact and effortless to use …»
Figure cameras record Brandford cops` activity form fresh point of view
March 16, 2012, The Fresh Haven Register
The Police Department plans to purchase ten more movie cameras that link to officers` uniforms and permit police to record their interactions with citizens. Capt. Geoffrey Morgan said the department has had two of the «VieVu» brand cameras for about a year. The department is adding the extra cameras with funding from the U.S. Department of Justice`s Assets Forfeiture Fund, specifically from funds seized from drug dealers, police said.
CT cop figure cameras record police/civilian interactions
March Nineteen, 2012, NBC Fresh York News
A Connecticut police department plans to purchase ten fresh bod cameras that can record officers` interactions with individuals they question or arrest. Traffic officers in Branford have been tooled with a few of the cameras for a year and believe they`ve helped prevent unsubstantiated civilian complaints. «People can make any kind of accusation they want, but now it`s recorded,» said Officer Rick Kenney. «In the past, they have accused me of being rude. Well, now it`s all on gauze.»
The police are watching… and recording
March 15, 2012, Branford Patch
Did you know that right now, if you were to be pulled over while driving by one of two Branford traffic officers your every stir is being documented? Linked to the uniform of officers Bryan McGinnis and Richard Kenney are VieVu figure cameras. Soon, the use of assets cameras will extend beyond traffic patrol as Branford`s Board of Police Commissioners approved the purchase of ten of them for the patrol officers at last night`s monthly meeting.
Spokane police could wear figure mounted cameras
January Four, 2012, KREM News
Spokane`s fresh Mayor David Condon announced the city is looking at fresh cameras police officers could be wearing. The cameras are already being used in Airway Heights. Officers in Airway Heights are using bod mounted cameras when responding to calls. The camera sits the size of a pager. The officer is in charge of activating the camera and it records the officers every stir, every word, and every other person he or she contacts. A little more than two years ago the Airway Heights Police Department considered installing dash cams on it`s vehicles but the department bought the bod mounted cameras instead.