Deputies test out body cameras

100 deputies trying out four models in initial program

Hoping to increase public trust in the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the agency has outfitted 100 deputies with body cameras.

The limited rollout will allow deputies to test four models and work out any hitches, as the agency moves toward the possibility of requiring all 1,400 road patrol deputies to wear them.

“The plan is to incrementally equip all BSO uniformed deputies with body-worn cameras,’’ Broward Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said in a written response to the Sun Sentinel.

The sheriff’s office is joining other South Florida agencies: Pembroke Pines, Hallandale Beach, Coral Springs, Delray Beach, West Palm Beach and MiamiDade police are among those with body cameras or pursuing them.

Law enforcement agencies across the state and country have moved toward

body cameras amid a growing concern about police shootings and altercations with civilians.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office’s pilot program was launched at no cost to the agency. Four camera manufacturers — Coban, Taser/ Axon, VieVu and Watch Guard — provided 25 cameras each for testing, sheriff ’s office officials said. But ultimately, a wide-scale camera program would depend on funding, a potentially multi-million dollar obstacle.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel has said equipping deputies with cameras is the right thing to do.

“This community wants body cameras,’’ he said at a budget workshop last summer. “I want body cameras. I’m going to ask this commission to pay for them, to fund them.’’

But he cautioned that the program’s cost could be enormous, mainly because of the need to upload, store, and manage the release of videos. Public records requests for the videos — from lawyers, victims, suspects, the media, and anyone else — will require legal analysis and removal of any material that falls under public records exemptions, for example.

Broward Mayor Marty Kiar said he supports cameras but expects a lively debate over how they should be paid for. The County Commission funds the sheriff’s budget, but the sheriff also contracts with some Broward cities for law enforcement.

The budget year starts Oct. 1, and the sheriff’s budget has a direct impact on whether property taxes are raised countywide.

The sheriff’s office camera policy, still in draft form, requires deputies to:

Activate the camera during an arrest, chase, adversarial contact with a citizen, traffic stop, search, crowd control or other calls for service.

Document any failure to record, or any interruption in recording.

Refrain from recording during strip searches, encounters with undercover deputies and confidential informants, or in locations where there is “a reasonable expectation of privacy’’ such as a locker room or hospital when the deputy isn’t involved in an active call or case.

Refrain from posting the videos to social media sites, unless written approval is given.

Download the video at the end of each shift and treat it as digital evidence. If the video documents a police-involved shooting, or death or serious injury of an arrested suspect, a supervisor will immediately take custody of it.

Deputies don’t have to tell a person that the video is on, but “deputies are encouraged’’ to do so, the policy says. They also don’t need a person’s permission to videotape — unless it’s a crime victim — and don’t have to play the video back for a person.

Videos that aren’t considered evidence in a crime still must be retained by the agency for 90 days.

Members of the public — or the media — can obtain some body camera video, but not all.

A law passed in 2015 by state legislators says agencies can withhold video shot in a person’s home, inside a facility that offers health care, mental health care or social services, or in a place that a reasonable person would expect to be private.

Kiar said he thinks cameras have public support.

“I’ve found the vast majority of folks I’ve spoken to are very supportive of it,’’ said Kiar, whose brother, a sheriff’s deputy in North Lauderdale, wears one. “People just believe that if there is a video, then nothing can contradict the video. It protects the public, and it protects the officer.’’

Still, the officers who have to wear them aren’t always happy about it, eyeing the requirement as one rooted in distrust, union President Jeff Bell of the International Union of Police Associations said. His union represents Broward sheriff ’s deputies.

“There’s resistance,’’ Bell said. “... For the honest cops out there, it’s kind of like, ‘You don’t believe me anymore?’ But when the camera clears you from a complaint, I think you’re going to see a lot of good come out of it — and bad. As technology advances, I think it’s just one more thing we’re going to have to do in law enforcement.’’

Bell lauded the sheriff for allowing deputies to help fashion the policies, including limiting use of the video by supervisors “on a fishing expedition’’ for wrongdoing.

Coleman-Wright said having body cameras would improve evidence collection, help the agency investigate complaints against deputies, and help deputies refute false claims.

The result would be improved service, and stronger trust between the public and the agency, she said.

“Studies have consistently shown significant decreases in complaints made against officer/deputies and a reduction in use of force,’’ she said in a written response to the Sun Sentinel.