What happened to body cameras for Gig Harbor police? Chief explains delay
The Gig Harbor police department pledged that it would be one of the first in the county to adopt body cameras. Months later, those cameras are still not being used.
Chief Kelly Busey had predicted last June that all officers would have body cameras within 30 to 45 days.
In an interview with The Gateway this week, Busey said the delays have been due to unforeseen technical hurdles.
“The body cameras are all there, they’re installed,” Busey said. “I’m leaning on our IT director as hard as I can to help us solve the final little component, which is the uploading of the video.”
Busey said that the process requires a secure link so that an officer is in a patrol vehicle can periodically put their body camera in a cradle to upload video when the vehicle has returned to the station.
Busey said the department has spent “roughly $150,000” on things like hardware as well as other aspects, such as storage space. Busey said an additional $5,000 has now been spent to overcome the technical hurdles.
Busey said he’s been working on the program for several years, but after the police union was formed in 2018 he had to spend “quite a bit of time” negotiating, and “during that time, the technology became slightly obsolete.”
The delay meant that all of the in-car digital video recorders needed to be upgraded to Windows 10.
“It wasn’t as though we would have seen that coming; we didn’t know Windows 10 was an upgrade. In fact, I didn’t even know those things ran Windows,” Busey said. “That’s what that was all about.”
Some in the community are skeptical about the reasons for the delay. Maurice Hanks, a 57-year-old Black Fox Island resident and former coach at Peninsula high, questions whether the department really wants to spend the money to make the cameras work.
“They don’t want to do it,” Hanks said. “It costs money, but tell me Gig Harbor does not have the money for cameras, really?”
Hanks said a body camera program is “absolutely” an important step for transparency in the department.
“We have to open our eyes up when there is no accountability,” Hanks said.
But Busey said the rocky rollout was unexpected and that there was no hidden agenda behind it.
He said none of these delays were intentional and any implication otherwise is “wrong,” as he still considers it a high priority.
Busey said he can’t predict for sure for sure when cameras will be deployed, but he hopes the project is now in the final stages.
“I have provided estimates in the past that have not been honored, so I don’t want to give you an estimate,” Busey said. “We started putting the equipment together and they were all outdated and we had to bring a consultant out from the company for two days of complete upgrades. It was all technical issues; it was nothing to do with desire or want.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
