By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
NEWPORT, N.H. — The Newport Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to accept $19,951 in grant money for the Body Worn and Dashboard Camera Project, which will go toward replacing dashboard cameras in the town’s police cruisers.
Chief Alex Lee explained that this is a continuation of the project that has been worked on for the past 18 months. The police department purchased 13 body worn cameras in December from a new vendor called Axon, which was partially funded by a N.H. Department of Safety grant and a U.S. Department of Justice grant, as well as locally funded by matched dollars.
The next stage is replacing the current dashboard cameras in the police cruisers with new and improved ones through Axon. Lee said these will work hand-in-hand in conjunction with the new body worn cameras.
Earlier in the year, Lee requested money for the project in his budget proposal. However, the feedback was to seek out additional grant funding options. He returned to the Department of Safety and asked if he could reapply for funding for cruiser cameras, which the department allowed and ultimately awarded.
“We’ve done another application with the Department of Safety, and they approved us for $19,951,” Lee said. “It is a one for one-dollar hard match that I will have to come up with out of my budget, but I am prepared to do that. That will cover the cost of dashboard cameras in the cruisers for the next five years.”
Lee said that critical incidents, such as a pursuit leading to a foot chase or an officer involved shooting, are when these cameras are needed most. These are the times where officers will most likely forget to activate the body worn camera because of the heat of the moment and everything happening so quickly. These new cameras solve this issue.
“The Axon body worn cameras, the Axon dashboard cameras, and our tasers which are also Axon products, are all connected to each other through bluetooth,” Lee said. “So when a certain automatic trigger happens, such as the officer turning on lights and sirens, goes above a certain speed, activates their taser, it will automatically turn on the cruiser camera and body worn camera at the same time.”
If an officer is in a cruiser chase and the lights and sirens are activated, everything will turn on at the same time. Or, if an officer bails from the cruiser to chase someone and uses his taser, it will automatically activate all cameras. The footage from the cruiser and body worn camera will be linked together in a cloud storage system so they will be able to play the video from the cruiser and officer’s camera simultaneously on a split screen. Also, if multiple officers are on a scene and someone activates a taser, all of the cameras for each officer will turn on automatically.
“It just gives us the highest assurance that if we have an unfortunate incident that it will all be captured on camera,” Lee said. “The body worn cameras that we purchased already, we are using them everyday in court to prove our criminal prosecutions. I’m using them on a regular basis when I get a citizen complaint.”
Internal Affairs investigations months to resolve at times, as people had different accounts of what happened. Witnesses needed to be interviewed. Now when Lee gets a citizen complaint on the phone, it can be resolved in 15 minutes because he can pull up the footage and see exactly what happened.
“It is an important accountability and transparency tool,” Lee said. “It’s important for our criminal prosecutions. Juries now expect this in every case. I think it is well worth the investment, particularly when such a high percentage of the cost of the grant is covered by three grants of the state and federal government.”
Lee said over the past three months, the police department has applied for and received 12 grants for various projects totaling $551,000. This is for highway safety patrols and equipment, drug enforcement investigations, body and cruiser cameras, dispatch upgrades and record software upgrades.
“We are just constantly looking for more grant opportunities so that we can use best practices and perform at the level that the community expects, and have minimum effect on our budget,” Lee said.
As far as the matching funds, Lee explained that he requested it in the last budget, but it did not make the cut. His intention is to find money in what was budgeted in other lines and make adjustments.
“We’ll have to make some sacrifices to make this happen, but it is a top priority for us so we’ll make it happen,” Lee said.
Lee said the Axon brand is dependable, and this was chosen over others because they have decimated the competition.
Chair James Burroughs said what he likes about these cameras is that they are always filming, but when the sirens turn on it highlights 30 seconds before to show why the officer flipped on the lights or activated a taser.
Burroughs called this “money well spent.” Selectman Bert Spaulding said there was a time period where society said they could do without this technology, and along the way, they have learned they simply can’t.
“The parts I like the most about this is that they activate when things get out of line,” Spaulding said. “That’s the perfect time. It protects the criminal, the police officer, and the innocent. My opinion would be that we approve this.”
Lee responded to Spaulding, saying that when the cameras first came on the scene they were viewed with skepticism from the officers because they were worried they would be used for administration to get them in trouble.
“Those views have changed so dramatically now that officers feel they cannot live without this,” Lee said.
