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Body Cameras for Rutland Police

By Patrick Mcardle
RUTLAND HERALD
The Rutland City Police Department will soon be starting a pilot program for equipping officers with body cameras with the goal of having them in common use by the third quarter of this year, according to Chief Brian Kilcullen.

During Thursday’s Project VISION meeting, Kilcullen said police staff had met on Wednesday with a vendor and administrators were finalizing paperwork so they can start a field test of the system.

“We looked at them a number of years ago and there were some issues that made it harder to proceed initially but we need to,” he said.

Kilcullen said he had concerns about what he believed were unsettled issues about the footage, such as how it needed to be stored; for how long; and who could request access to stored footage, and for what purpose. He noted that electronic data storage could be expensive although he added that “storage has gotten a lot cheaper.”

Sean Sargent, chair of the Rutland Police Commission, said on Friday there were concerns about privacy issues.

He raised the question that if police came to a resident’s house for some reason, would a neighbor have the right to see that footage that was recorded inside someone’s home even if the neighbor couldn’t cite a legitimate purpose.

However, Sargent said the state Department of Public Safety had created a model policy that departments could use as a basis for their own needs, which addressed some of those issues.

While Sargent said he’s only one member of the commission, he said he has consistently stated that he doesn’t believe “there was a credibility gap between the people of the city of Rutland and the Rutland City Police Department that would be solved through the use of body camera technology.”

Sargent also cited the questions about how long the footage would have to be archived.

“However, over the last year, we’ve received some clarification. There’s now a statewide model policy on the use of body camera technology, the retention periods, the Freedom of Information requests and now’s the right time to roll this technology out to our officers. It’s becoming the standard of performance for police departments across the nation,” he said.

There have been three police-involved shootings involving officers with the Rutland City Police Department in the last three years. In August 2021, Jonathan Daniel Mansilla, of Coral Gables, Florida, was shot and killed at the Rutland McDonald’s restaurant after an extended vehicle pursuit.

Michael Goodnough, 46, was shot in July 2020 while police were attempting arrests on drug-related charges. Goodnough survived, and he has pending charges of second-degree attempted murder for allegedly hitting an officer with his car while attempting to flee during the incident.

Christopher G. Louras, 33, was shot and killed by police after a brief chase inside the city. Police said Louras had fired shots at the police station on Oct. 8, 2019, which resulted in a pursuit and a shootout in the parking lot of the Rutland Shopping Plaza.

In 2010, a New York man, James Lamont, 36, was shot and killed at the Stewart’s on State Street after a traffic stop, but the officer who fired the shots was a Vermont State Police trooper. Police said Lamont had disobeyed police commands and drew a loaded .380 caliber handgun before being shot.

The incident with Louras, son of former mayor Christopher G. Louras, was captured on video because cruisers used by the Rutland City Police Department are equipped with dashboard camera equipment.

Sargent said some of the officers he’s talked to want to be equipped with body cameras.

“They’re doing a great job, and the body cameras are going to show they’re doing a great job so they would like it for them, to protect themselves from false allegations, as well,” he said.

The initial cost for the body cameras was included in the police budget that was approved by voters in March. Kilcullen said he added a line item of about $40,000, but estimated the final cost for getting body cameras for everyone in the department will be more. He said he expects the equipment to be paid for over a period of time, with upgrades included.

“It’s a fairly robust program that we’re looking at,” he said.

For the very short-term, Kilcullen said a few officers will be field testing the equipment but he’s hoping they’ll be in regular use some time in the third quarter of this year.

The goal would be to have each officer assigned a body camera rather than to have a smaller number of cameras that are used by different officers for different shifts. Kilcullen said he expects some training, but added he doesn’t expect the learning curve will be very long. He said most of the training will probably be given to the information technology staff managing the data on the back end.

In November 2020, officials with the Vermont State Police announced they were outfitting all uniformed troopers with body cameras.

Col. Matthew T. Birmingham, director of the Vermont State Police, called the deployment “exciting” in a statement announcing the program.

“The public has been asking for us to have them, and our troopers have wanted them,” he said.

The work to add body cameras to the standard equipment used by troopers started in 2015. Member of the VSP had already had dashcams since 2000.

“We already appreciate the value and importance of our cruiser cameras and body-worn microphones, and this will enable us to serve our communities with another dimension of transparency,” Birmingham said.

Kilcullen agreed the cameras provide a “certain level of transparency.”

“But it does also serve to capture evidence and allows us to do a better job of providing police service to the community,” he said.

patrick.mcardle @rutlandherald.com

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