Brookfield PD gets body cameras ahead of deadline

BROOKFIELD — All Brookfield police officers have been outfitted with body cameras, complete with online and in-house training on their use and functions, according to an official press release from the department.

The official announcement comes ahead of the state’s police accountability legislation deadline requiring all officers to wear body cameras and have in-dash cameras by July 1, 2022.

The local police department received their order of 36 Axon Body 3 cameras — enough for each of their 34 sworn officers with two extras— in early January, and completed training online and with a company representative by Jan. 19. Since then, all on-duty officers have been using the equipment.

The cost of the equipment was about $220,000 but the department will be paying it down as a recurring operating cost over five years, and will also be using a state reimbursement grant to cover 30 percent of the full cost, police Capt. Peter Frengs said.

“This technology offers transparency and accountability by building trust and confidence between our agency and the community we serve,” the release said. “This newly implemented technology will help keep our community and our officers safer.”

The department is also hoping that the cameras will “help deescalate situations” as well as “improve interactions” between the officers and residents. The release notes that the videos of interactions could create the opportunity for “individualized training opportunities” after the incident occurs, ultimately helping improve and update practices within a department.

“I haven’t heard any negative comments, I think mostly positive,” said Frengs of officer responses.

The idea behind this state provision, which was initially passed in July as part of the broader accountability legislation, was to “contribute to the accurate documentation of critical incidents, police-public contacts, crime and accident scenes, and arrests,” legislative documents state.

The press release notes that the department has been using dash cameras in police cars since the early 1990s, and since 2005, all vehicles had these systems in place.

Brookfield is not the only department to preemptively order body cameras for its officers.

In January, Danbury also began the process of outfitting officers with 115 purchased body cameras, and Ridgefield budgeted around $424,000 for body cameras that will be paid over the next five year period.

But the search for the body cameras in Brookfield began in March of 2020, several months before the passage of the legislation.

“The chief told me in March this was something we wanted to do as a proactive agency,” officer Brian Flanagan said.

Frengs said it was something that has been talked about for a few years since it was a “very useful tool for officers.”

The department began to talk to numerous vendors and eventually narrowed their selection down to three, Flanagan said. By August, they were doing testing and evaluations of different vendors’ technology with the officers.

Flanagan said the general reaction to the technology during the initial testing phase was “very very positive.”

“The officers that had them, they felt naked when they had to give them up.”