In a 4-1 vote Feb. 28 the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved Sheriff Eric Taylor’s request to move forward with an advanced body-worn camera program that would cost $2.5 million over 10 years. There was also a five-year plan with Axon, formerly Taser International, but the longer plan will save more than $248,000 per year over 10 years, Taylor said. After county staff works out the details with Axon, they will bring the contract back as an action item March 14.
Taylor said the program could save the county time and money and provide transparency to law enforcement. It would include upgrading all Tasers to the current configuration and the addition of a linking capability, cloud storage and training deputies.
Even though Taylor said he was not asking for money up front from the county’s general fund at this time, and said he was prepared to pay for the system out of his current budget, Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki voted against the program, saying he wanted to find other possible sources of funding, such as the Community Corrections Partnership (CCP) before moving forward. He also said he preferred issuing a request for proposals to obtain multiple bids rather than a single-source provider. Supervisor Dom Zanger said he did not understand the rush to move forward but Supervisors Bea Gonzales and Angela Curro, as well as chair Mindy Sotelo, agreed that it was too important an issue to wait.
“I don’t quite understand why we’re going to delay when time is of the essence and they’re not looking for funds today from the general fund,” Sotelo said. “They’re saying it’s coming from their budget. So, if CCP comes back at the end of March or April and says, ‘We’re willing to put in $100,000 a year to fund this program,’ then how does that affect our decision today?”
Taylor wants to replace the department’s outdated Tasers and body cameras with an integrated system that links the body cameras with the Tasers and handguns and would upload videos to the cloud. The technology would activate the body cameras when a Taser is turned on or a handgun is taken from the holster. It would not only activate the individual deputy’s body camera but every other camera within 30 yards, including those in squad cars that are using the same system.
He also said the system uses AI technology to write up incident reports based on what is on the videos, which deputies would edit later, saving considerable downtime.
“It’s a large ask because it’s a lot of money,” Taylor said of the program’s $2.5 million cost, “But there’s some certain things we can’t quantify. In the long run, this actually is going to save us money.”
Taylor said transparency in policing is no longer just a desire.
“It’s an absolute reality and a necessity that is demanded by the public,” he said. “My role is to use technology to keep the department’s limited staffing on the street, increase transparency and accountability, and also to safeguard the evidence needed for criminal cases.”
He said technology has been an issue in the county for years.
”We actually went offline for a period of time a few years ago because of our technology and during that time our deputy sheriffs could not write reports because our servers were housed here on premise,” he said. “We were able to do a workaround by bringing another server to the jail. This [hosted, cloud] technology would make that non-issue.”
He said it was fortunate that no evidence was lost.
“But I will tell you, it’s what has kept me up at night since I arrived here in 2014,” he said. “We keep all of our evidence photographs and videos on the county server. And at any time that we have any type of catastrophic event with our servers that evidence is gone. This solution would keep it in multiple locations at the same time. We would never lose evidence.”
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. It is expensive to produce local news and community support is what keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service, nonprofit news.
You must be logged in to post a comment.