Police patrolling Gainesville may be wearing body cameras in the next few years.
University Police spokesman Maj. Brad Barber said his department has been testing the cameras for more than a year, but it is still looking into the benefits and costs of the initiative.
“A body camera would provide a first-person narrative of dangers and split-second decisions our officers get into each day,” Barber said. “We’re still looking into what camera system would be efficient.”
With only 40 percent of Gainesville Police patrol cars outfitted with dashboard cameras, Gainesville Police spokesman Officer Ben Tobias said the cost is a major factor in the decision to buy body cameras. The cameras would cost just more than $300,000 for the 302 officers in the department, he said.
Despite the cost, he said the department prides itself on its transparency.
“We understand that as public servants, someone’s going to be filming us,” Tobias said. “This is not something we’re against. We’re all for it.”
For Fred Shenkman, a UF emeritus professor of criminology, the body cameras fail to address a bigger issue — a lack of trust in police officers.
“If we give someone the ability to deprive one of their life and of their liberty, and then we don’t trust them, I have more of a problem with that lack of trust,” said Shenkman, who has consulted with GPD and other law enforcement agencies. “I would work on the other end, ensuring that the people we have working in the police department have the trust of the government and the trust of the people they’re policing.”
He said he would rather have people examine the training, the pay and the background of police officers than use cameras to watch their every move.
“I question how other people in other professional occupations would feel if they had to wear a body camera the entire time they were working,” he said, “and how that would affect how they view their work and how they view themselves.”
While the call for body cameras has come in the aftermath of high-profile, fatal police incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, Shenkman said people often forget the wide range of decisions police officers must make.
“The police are involved in some of the most difficult situations in society, and when people are in trouble, who do they call? It ain’t Ghostbusters,” Shenkman said. “Police deal with everything from double parking to multiple homicide — it’s the same cop doing both things.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 2/5/2015 under the headline “Local police departments considering body cams for officers"]
Correction: The original story named Sgt. Brad Barber instead of Maj. Brad Barber.
