Knoxville’s uniformed police get body cameras

KNOXVILLE — Knoxville’s police force says it has finished equipping all of its uniformed officers with body cameras.

Knoxville police say they have also installed upgraded in-car camera systems.

The department has deployed 297 body cameras and installed 333 in-car systems over the past several months.

By the end of the first phase in mid-October, 50 officers and 50 vehicles were set up with the new Axon cameras.

Police say the new in-car system offers better video quality and field of view than previous cameras. The in-car system includes a rear-facing camera that captures video from the back seat and is automatically activated when the backdoor opens.

The body cameras automatically record when an officer opens the car door or if they are close to another officer with a body camera activated.

The system automates the upload of all body camera or in-car video to a cloud-based system.

As of March 26, nearly 67,000 gigabytes of the camera footage had been stored, a total of almost 290,000 pieces of video uploaded, police say.

“This technology will drastically improve transparency and accountability,” Knoxville Police Chief Eve Thomas said in a news release. “I feel that it will also boost the confidence citizens have in our department as it will showcase the professionalism, respect and empathy our officers display on a daily basis. This is a great thing for our department and city.”