Manatee deputies to get body cameras

The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office will be equipping deputies with body cameras to capture interactions with the public before the year’s end.

Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells said the Sheriff’s Office has entered a 10-year, $10.8 million contract with Axon, a provider of tasers and body cameras for law enforcement.

“Axon is, in our opinion, the best camera system out there for law enforcement,” Wells said. “They are well known for their quality, and their police camera set up.”

Wells said it has been difficult to focus taxpayer money on equipment when it is working to increase the number of deputies serving the public. However, under the current climate regarding law enforcement, body cameras are considered a must.

“People just expect us to have body cams,” he said. “They want to see exactly what happened. We thought it was time to equip our deputies with this. 

“It’s going to prove more times than not that our deputies were in the right, they were doing the right thing,” Wells said. “I want to be able to show the public more than a 20-second video that someone’s taken from their iPhone. I want to see them what took place from the time the deputy arrived to the action that may have led to a hands-on arrest.”

Under the agreement, Axon will outfit the Sheriff’s Office with 555 new body cameras for deputies and provide data storage and access to the video produced. Axon also will supply more than 500 stun guns, and cover any upgrades and repairs to equipment under the terms of the contract.

The cameras will not run constantly, but can be activated by deputies when responding to a scene. They also will automatically activate when a deputy turns on his vehicle lights, he pulls out a stun gun or firearm, or when he is within 10 yards of a deputy wearing an already activated camera.

Wells said the deal is a good one for the Sheriff’s Office, in that it’s almost working out like a buy-one-get-one-free in terms of pricing. The pricing offered is almost just the price of stun guns alone.

“They’re giving us a heck of a deal,” Wells said. “If there’s a new and improved camera that comes out, we get that for free. If there’s a new and improved taser, we get that for free. Any upgrades to their system is free to us now. If a camera breaks, it’s replaced for free. There’s a full warranty.”

Wells said storage of videos for the body camera footage has been one of the deterrents from having body cameras, as storage is expensive and sorting through video is time consuming and requires personnel that have not ben available. Axon uses a site called evidence.com to store that information and redactions can be done within the system. 

Wells said the first day the Sheriff’s Office began testing camera equipment, a complaint came in about the actions of a deputy. With the video footage, the Sheriff’s Office was quickly and easily able to prove the complaint was false and the deputy had acted appropriately.

 “It’s going to eliminate a lot of these false complaints,” Wells said. 

Wells noted the Sheriff’s Office gets an estimated five complaints against deputies per week.

He said he hopes the body cameras will also discourage the public from disparaging deputies, as well. 

“It’s going to help no matter where we’re at," he said. "In today’s law enforcement, they are a needed tool,” he said. “It’s going to protect us and it’s going to protect the public.”