As Lexington police add more body cameras, costs inch up. Find out how much
Since 2016, Lexington has spent nearly $3 million to purchase and store video for more than 830 body-worn cameras for Lexington police.
That figure does not include $261,567 needed to purchase additional cameras for 178 officers and civilians that currently do not have body-worn cameras.
A little more than half of that $261,567 will likely be paid for by a federal grant.
Still, even when all police officers have body cameras, likely by early next year, there will be additional costs.
Storage of the videos from those cameras will likely cost upwards of $800,000 annually, Lexington police officials told a committee of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council on Tuesday.
In 2016, the city entered a contract with Taser Axon for $2.6 million for five years. The purchase was driven in part by calls from activists, including the NAACP, to increase transparency in the wake of police-involved killings of Black people across the country. Those initial 800 body cameras were purchased in 2016 and 2017. Each officer has two cameras.
The department later purchased an additional 30 cameras and other equipment, driving up costs. In total the department has spent $2,935,059 to date, Assistant Chief Dwayne Holman told the council’s Planning and Public Safety Committee.
The Planning and Public Safety Committee is reviewing the use and policies surrounding body-worn cameras. The city announced earlier this month that it was purchasing additional cameras for roughly the third of the department that does not have cameras. Officers that currently have body cameras are those with the most interactions with citizens such as patrol, detectives and narcotics officers.
Since the department began tracking activation failures in late 2017, there have been 874 such failures. Of those roughly 31 percent were due to officer error -- they failed to turn on the camera. Roughly 33 percent were due to an equipment problem. The other third the officer said they tried to turn on the camera but it failed to activate, Holman said.
Officers who fail to activate cameras can be punished. For a first offense the punishment can range from a discussion with the supervisor to a written reprimand. For a third offense, officers can be given a three-day suspension.
Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers told the committee Tuesday there are reasons why an officer may not have time to activate a camera. That’s why there is some leeway in the policy so circumstances can be taken into consideration.
The council put the issue of body-worn cameras in committee because of recent questions about how they are used and who doesn’t have one.
There was no body-camera footage of a controversial incident involving an altercation between former Lexington Police Chaplain Donovan Stewart and an autistic Black teen at the Fayette Mall in February 2019.
Stewart was not issued a body-worn camera. Stewart was working off-duty at the mall at the time of the February incident. A second officer had a body-worn camera but failed to turn it on.
Bystander video of the incident shows Stewart hitting the teen as he lay on the ground.
The family of the teenager has sued Stewart in federal court alleging Stewart continued to hit the teen after he was subdued. The city and Stewart has asked the case be dismissed. Stewart has alleged the teenager hit him first. The teen was charged in juvenile court. Juvenile court records are not open to the public.
Stewart retired before an internal investigation was completed.
Lack of body camera footage was also an issue in two high-profile shootings in Louisville earlier this year.
When Louisville police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor while serving a no-knock warrant in mid-March, there was no body-worn camera footage. Similarly, Louisville Metro Police officers failed to activate body cameras in the shooting that killed restaurant owner David McAtee during protests over Taylor’s death and other police-involved slayings across the country. Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired after it was revealed there was no body camera footage of the McAtee shooting.
When Lexington police release body camera footage has also come under fire recently.
Lexington police denied an Open Records Act request from a citizen for body-camera footage of officers who arrested more than 20 Black Lives Matter protesters in June. The Kentucky Attorney General’s office recently upheld the department’s decision not to release the videos, citing an exemption in state open records law that allows for the withholding of some information if there is an ongoing criminal investigation if the agency can state the specific reason why it would harm the criminal investigation.
Police released body-camera footage of arrests of Black Lives Matter protesters in July after one protester alleged an officer used a chokehold on him. Police released their own video saying it showed no chokehold was used. Protesters also released images and video, alleging a chokehold was used.
Council member James Brown and other council members asked Weathers Tuesday why some body camera videos are released and others are not.
Weathers said if there is an ongoing criminal case, body-camera videos aren’t typically released. But there are circumstances where it may be in the public’s best interest for the video to be released to tamp down possible civil unrest, he said.
Weathers said he has asked for the release of body-camera footage from a late-July police-involved shooting. Police said officer Miller Owens shot Darion D. Worfolk, 26, after he refused to drop a gun. Worfolk sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Kentucky State Police are investigating the shooting. KSP has not yet released the video, he said.
Brown said inconsistencies in the police’s release of body-camera footage can create questions and distrust. It would be better if the department has a written policy on when the body-camera footage can be released, Brown and others said.
The committee took no action Tuesday but will keep body camera policies in committee. The committee is also expected to review other police policies including department policies on off-duty work.
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 4:53 PM.
