Police, deputies nearly camera-ready in Sonoma County (w/video)

By this time next year, most law enforcement officers patrolling Sonoma County’s streets will be wearing body-mounted cameras capable of capturing events as they unfold.

Already, police forces in Cotati, Healdsburg and Sebastopol have been recording traffic stops, field sobriety tests and other encounters with the public for much or all of 2014. Select Santa Rosa officers and Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies have been wearing cameras since the spring, and both agencies expect to outfit most patrol personnel with cameras by the end of 2015.

Calls for police to wear cameras have become refrains across the nation in response to unrest that has spilled onto the streets in places like Ferguson, Mo., where a white officer shot and killed an unarmed black teen.

Grappling with how to respond to claims of systemic racial bias in law enforcement, President Barack Obama on Monday rolled out a $253 million plan going before Congress that includes funding to help outfit police across the nation with body cameras.

In Sonoma County, sheriff’s officials had already been looking into body cameras when 13-year-old Andy Lopez, who was carrying what looked like an AK-47, was shot by a deputy on Oct. 22, 2013. The shooting - and its unanswerable questions - moved the cameras to the top of priority lists.

“This incident was certainly a call to action to do some of these things much sooner than we might have done,” Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo said of the shooting.

On Tuesday, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors will consider approving a $1 million, five-year contract with Taser International to begin outfitting patrol deputies with a $400 camera called the Axon Body.

Capt. Clint Shubel, who is overseeing the Sheriff’s Office pilot camera program, said the county’s effort to address the community response to Lopez’s death “opened doors” to get a camera program launched.

“We’ve wanted to do this for a while. Now we have the ability to do it,” Shubel said.

This week, Santa Rosa Police Chief Hank Schreeder will receive a recommendation from personnel, who tested two models, and begin making a plan to outfit the patrol force.

The video evidence collected by police in Sonoma County has already proved useful in a variety of matters - from providing video evidence of a driver’s drunken speech to enabling a supervisor to review an officer’s conduct during an encounter.

But many law enforcement leaders have said it would be foolhardy to consider the cameras magic bullets for understanding the dynamics of what takes place between police and the public.

While he is eager to get cameras for all patrol officers, Schreeder said the cameras cannot “give you all the answers to a specific event.”

“Could (cameras) help build trust in the community? Absolutely,” Schreeder said. “Is it an end all? No.”

Lopez’s death unearthed a wellspring of mistrust among some residents and law enforcement agencies.

Body cameras quickly entered discussions as a concrete tool that might help foster accountability. Civil rights activists have said the footage could help protect residents from unfair treatment. Law enforcement leaders have said the footage will help prevent unfair accusations against the force.

The Board of Supervisors asked a community task force created after Lopez was killed to follow the Sheriff’s Office’s progress testing camera models and establishing policies for how to use them.

“I welcome the use of these cameras,” said Carrillo, whose supervisory district includes the Moorland neighborhood in west Santa Rosa where Lopez lived and died. “The presence of cameras improves the performance of officers and the conduct of members of the public.”

The day-to-day value of police-worn cameras is already playing out in routine investigations.

Locally, the Cotati Police Department was the first to outfit its entire 11-officer force with cameras, starting in late 2013. Chief Michael Parrish said he opted to invest in the new technology instead of replacing dashboard cameras they’d had for years on patrol cars.

“Our officers really like (the body cameras) for a lot of reasons,” Parrish said. “When they sit down and write their police reports, they can replay the media, listen to witnesses. It helps them write a better report for prosecution.”

Parrish said officers said that merely telling a combative person they are being videotaped can have a calming effect.

In Healdsburg, all 17 sworn personnel have worn body cameras since about September, including the chief.

“It’s just a matter of time before every police officer in the country will have them,” Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke said.

They began looking into the technology about two years ago and have tried a variety of models, including a camera mounted on a pair of glasses.

Burke said the video “gives you the crucial police officer’s perspective. It creates the ultimate in transparency.”

All Sebastopol officers have worn cameras since July.

Sebastopol Police Chief Jeff Weaver said that the video footage has made it easier for officers to make a case to the District Attorney’s Office. After a recent public drunkenness arrest, prosecutors initially declined to file charges but changed their minds after they were asked to review the officers’ video footage, Weaver said.

“It’s one thing to see how drunk someone is in words on a piece of paper; it is another thing to visually see it. A picture is worth a thousand words,” Weaver said.

Petaluma police are preparing to order about a dozen cameras.

“We want them just as much as many members of the public want them, maybe for different reasons,” Lt. Dan Fish said. “They are there to protect the officers as much as anything else.”

Rohnert Park Public Safety Department Commander Jeff Taylor said that one traffic officer is currently experimenting with a camera in the field.

Cloverdale Police Chief Mark Tuma said there is no money in the budget for cameras, and the department has not even begun researching the possibility.

Shubel, with the Sheriff’s Office, said that they started looking into cameras in 2012 and last spring outfitted about a dozen patrol deputies with cameras. In a recent report to the county task force, staff estimated about 42 deputies would be using a body-worn camera each day once the contract is approved and the devices ordered.

Santa Rosa Police Lt. John Noland said that after the chief approves a specific model of camera, they will begin the intensive process of developing a policy for how to use them.

The cameras do not run on a continual loop because the cost of storing that data would be astronomical. For most departments, officers are instructed to turn the camera on when they initiate a traffic stop or respond to a 911 call. In Santa Rosa, for example, the footage is stored for 366 days.

President Obama’s proposed plan includes $75 million earmarked to go to 50 percent matching grants for local law enforcement to purchase about 50,000 body-worn cameras nationwide.

But that program won’t help cities and counties cover significant ongoing costs, Schreeder said.

Some camera models are less expensive but include a monthly subscription fee to a cloud server where data is stored. Other devices are more expensive but are built for data to be downloaded to local agency servers, which potentially costs less to run.

On Tuesday, Santa Rosa Police Officer Steve Merical with the traffic bureau wore a camera about the size of a deck of cards on his chest.

Merical demonstrated how the device immediately uploaded video to his smartphone, where he could enter a case number and other details that will later be uploaded to a cloud server online.

He has tried a variety of cameras over the past two years and said it’s now, for the most part, automatic for him to hit play on the camera in response to an incident.

He has recorded witness statements at major injury collisions in the rain, recorded sobriety tests and said the cameras keep him on his best, most professional behavior.

“It’s a good thing,” Merical said. “It protects us. It protects the citizens involved.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.