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West Valley Police Awarded $1.3M In Grants For Body Cameras

In the wake of use of force incidents in Ferguson and Baltimore, body cameras have been presented as a way to increase police transparency and accountability.

The Glendale and Peoria police departments are two of four Valley agencies receiving federal grant money for body cameras, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona announced Tuesday.

Peoria was one of the first West Valley agencies to use body cameras and its program began in December 2014. It outfitted patrol, traffic and K9 officers with 54 body cameras from the Scottsdale-based company Taser International. The Department had hoped to increase the number of cameras this year and the approximately $53,000 grant will allow it to double its body cameras, said Peoria Police Commander Douglas Steele, the program's coordinator.

“I’ve gotten multiple requests from officers asking, ‘Hey, when are we going to expand the program? When am I going to be able to get a camera?’ Overall, the program has been very positive,” Steele said.

Some have questioned whether redacting body camera videos would create a log jam for processing public records requests. While that may become an issue, Steele said he thinks the overall value of body cameras outweighs that potential drawback.

“We have not seen Valley-wide a huge increase in FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests or public records requests,” Steele said. “But it is an issue in reference to timeliness, and it does take a lot of time to do something like that.”

Glendale spent significant time reviewing different body camera brands, other departments’ programs and best practices from the U.S. Department of Justice in preparing its grant application, said Glendale Police Sgt. David Vidaure. The Department plans to use the approximately $450,000 to buy about 300 body cameras, software and hardware to manage videos and to hire a full-time employee to process the for evidence or public records requests. Glendale hopes to purchase the cameras by around January 1 and launch them shortly afterward.

Having used dashboard cameras for years, Glendale officers are used to having what they say and do recorded, Vidaure said.

“The real change will probably just be in the operation of the technology based upon the product we choose to implement,” Vidaure said.

The Phoenix and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community police departments were also awarded money for body cameras. The grants are worth about $1.3 million combined.

Matthew Casey has won Edward R. Murrow awards for hard news and sports reporting since he joined KJZZ as a senior field correspondent in 2015.