Clermont considers bodycams for deputies
‘There’s not a need for it,’ but sheriff open to idea
“The big thing I am waiting for is the state or federal government and any reforms that come forward that may address the purchasing and maintaining of body cameras.” Robert Leahy Clermont County sheriff
Clermont County Sheriff Robert Leahy says state-mandated duties and his own priorities eat up too much of his budget to justify a body camera program now.
Leahy also believes county residents already trust his office to quickly and aggressively investigate allegations of misconduct on the part of his employees.
But Leahy wouldn’t be averse to deputies using body cameras if state and federal grants for the equipment and, importantly, continuing costs for using it, become available.
Leahy believes that very well could happen soon, given the current national debate on police reform.
“The big thing I am waiting for is the state or federal government and any reforms that come forward that may address the purchasing and maintaining of body cameras,” Leahy said.
“In the future when I have the ability to or it’s time for us to – and it will (eventually) be time for us to – move in that direction, I’m open to it.”
The Clermont County Board of Commissioners, which manages the sheriff’s budget with his input, are not ruling out the possibility of equipping deputies with body cameras in the future.
“The sheriff’s priority has been additional training, additional staff and new safety equipment,” Commissioner David Painter said.
“Maybe down the road, if funding becomes available as part of mandated state or federal reform, we could explore this issue.”
Hamilton County sheriff deputies are equipped with body cameras, as are officers in some local police departments, such as Cincinnati’s.
Butler County deputies don’t have the cameras.
Leahy said it would cost his office about $150,000 a year to maintain bodycamera data and to pay someone to oversee the program, which requires an employee to provide copies of the
videos upon request after the videos are reviewed and protected private information redacted.
“Across the country, the cries for body cameras are about accountability, (but) the number of complaints we have from the public are very minimal,” Leahy said.
Leahy said most of the misconduct claims involving his staff come from supervisors in his office.
“We hold our own people to account when we see them making mistakes, which is the key to better policing and better community relations for this county,” Leahy said.
“It makes it hard for me to justify this additional expense (for body cameras) when there’s not a need for it.”
Leahy said his priorities now are on keeping fully staffed, continuing current programs, infrastructure upkeep, technological upgrades to equipment and an $852,000 training facility under construction on Ohio 222 in Batavia.
Leahy said some people may be unaware of the number and variety of responsibilities that fall to his office, which has an annual budget of about $21 million and handles about 70,000 calls for service a year, not including traffic stops or arrests.
Leahy’s office employs 100 deputies who patrol roads, investigate crimes,
transport prisoners, provide security at courthouses, serve documents issued by the courts and provide police services for communities without their own police departments.
Other law-enforcement agencies work with deputies on the sheriff’s Clermont County Special Response Team and Clermont County Drug Task Force.
Another 100 civilian corrections officers in Leahy’s office run the Clermont County Jail.
The office also has about 20 administrative employees.
“If we tried to take somebody from another position (to oversee a bodycamera program) and spread around (that person’s former work), the workload’s probably going to be too much because we are pretty streamlined with our number of employees,” Leahy said.
Leahy said his office has considered body cameras off and on for the last three or four years, but available grants usually were only for the initial purchase of the cameras.“so, the issue financially is the long-term commitment needed to maintain the data and storage of those cameras,” Leahy said.
Currently, the village of Moscow and the townships of Batavia, Franklin, Monroe, Tate and Washington contract with the sheriff’s office for police services.
“I think if we were to get body cameras, then a portion of that cost would be passed on to them,” Leahy said. “But as of right now, we are not to that point.”
Union Township Trustee John Mcgraw said whether Clermont County sheriff deputies should get body cameras is a question for Leahy and the county commissioners.
“I would say yes, but I realize the cost of the cameras, the system servers and maintenance needed to back up the cameras is quite expensive,” Mcgraw said. “I would like to see Union Township police get cameras, but the expense is something out of our current budget. If residents desire cameras, then they have to be willing to pay for them.”
Milford Police Chief Jamey Mills said body cameras are great, and like anything great, come with a hefty price tag.
“In addition to the purchase price, there’s the ongoing expense of data storage, and even more taxing are the personnel hours to manage the data. Any recording that included identification information (such as) driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, etc., would have to be redacted,” Mills said.
County Commissioner Ed Humphrey said the sheriff’s opinion on using body cameras would be central to any study of the possibility.
“We would need to examine the sheriff’s priorities, as there are significant ongoing costs associated with this,” Humphrey said.
County Commissioner Claire Corcoran agreed.
“As we work with the sheriff, this is definitely worth exploring as priorities are discussed,” Corcoran said.