Houma-Terrebonne Chamber usher in new year
January 20, 2015Season for cakes fit for royalty – Mardi Gras kings, that is
January 21, 2015
The entire Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office will be outfitted with body cameras by February thanks to a large purchase of equipment, according to Sheriff Jerry Larpenter.
The department purchased 100 new cameras with night vision capability at one-tenth of the price of the competition from a company out of Baton Rouge called LATech, said Larpenter.
“This is a new era in law enforcement,” said Larpenter. “When I first became a police officer.. .you carried a gun, about twelve rounds of bullets and handcuffs.”
Twenty officers in the Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Division already have body cameras made by Taser, Larpenter said. The initial investment in 15 cameras and the related software cost the department around $50,000. The new purchase of 100 cameras from LATech will cost around $30,000 at $300 a piece, said Larpenter.
Larpenter explained that when the technology first came out, the camera systems’ prices were “astronomical.” Since then, he said, the price has gone down.
The Sheriff’s Office has purchased enough server equipment to store footage “for years to come,” said Larpenter. Videos will be stored at the Sheriff’s Office headquarters and managed by their in-house IT department.
Deputies upload video after their shifts by simply plugging their cameras into a docking station that also charges them, said Larpenter.
The Houma Police Department has also made strides towards upgrading their camera systems, especially since the department has had problems with their dash cameras for their squad cars.
“We could never get ’em working,” said Chief Todd Duplantis. “They’ve always seemed to be broken and we’ve always struggled to maintain [them.]”
Problems ranged from software issues to lost discs containing footage, said Duplantis.
Duplantis said the department already has over 100 body cameras in use, but is searching for funding to buy a new set of body cameras that can also serve as dash cameras at a fraction of the price of in-car systems.
The cameras, called AXON FLEX and made by Taser, feature multiple mounting options, allowing officers to place the camera on their hats, collars, glasses, or on top of the dashboard of their squad cars. Officers upload videos the same way Terrebonne Sherriff’s deputies do using docking stations, according to Taser’s website.
Each FLEX camera costs approximately $600, said Duplantis.
Duplantis said he is in the process of using a Department of Homeland Security grant to purchase additional cameras, but is searching for funding to buy 50 FLEX cameras.
Houma’s Police Department does not have in-house storage of videos, opting instead to utilize cloud storage offered by Taser’s video cloud storage website, evidence.com.
Duplantis said in an email to the Terrebonne Parish council that the department pays $1,275 monthly for 7225 gigabytes of storage per month. Since implementing the cameras last October, they’ve filled almost 10 percent of that.
Videos are stored for varying amounts of time based on the category of the interaction in order to save space, but the cloud storage allows investigators to easily share videos with the district attorney by simply emailing them a link, said Duplantis.
On Public Records Law
According to both Larpenter and Duplantis, videos captured by police body cameras are not public record until either the individual investigation is complete or they are shown in court as evidence.
This echoes the general exception to sunshine laws that law enforcement records generally already have.
On Policies For Camera Use Terrebonne Parish Sherriff’s deputies will be required to activate their cameras at the beginning of every encounter they have with the public, said Larpenter. Compliance with this policy will be policed by the IT professionals who maintain the cameras and servers.
Each video will be assigned to a corresponding case number. The IT specialist will be charged with pulling case numbers and ensuring that there is a video with the correct time and date, according to the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff.
Deputy Max Verret, 26, wears a bulletproof vest outfitted with a Taser brand body camera, seen on his right shoulder. New cameras ordered by the LPSO will have night-vision capabilities.
