Police officials note significant benefits by livestreaming video from body-worn cameras

Public-safety and security entities cite situational-awareness advantages by livestreaming video from officers’ body-worn cameras, but there are differing opinions among agencies about which personnel should view the real-time video and other policies, according to speakers discussing the topic during the recent APCO 2024 event.

Capt. James Hilles of the Alliance (Ohio) Police Department said he directed his agency’s dispatchers to begin viewing livestreams from officers’ Axon body-worn cameras last year, with a relatively modest purpose in mind: reduce  radio traffic on the LMR system by eliminating most—if not all—verbal “checkups” on officers from dispatchers.

“This was the only thing I wanted,” Hilles said during the APCO session. “I told them [dispatchers], ‘We’re going to put this livestreaming in dispatch. When an officer is out—on a traffic stop, a citizen encounter, or whatever’s going on—all I want you to do is pull up their video and just watch. You don’t have listen; you can mute the audio. All I want you to do is focus on what’s going on, so you can see whether they [officers] are OK.

“’And with that, no more officer checkups on the radio, unless there is some sort of weird circumstance that makes you have to do it.’”

Although there initial were reservations from some dispatchers, the radio-traffic goal was realized within a couple of weeks—“and there were no complaints, which was crazy to me,” Hilles said.

Hilles said he was happy with this outcome, but his agency’s dispatchers decided to do more.

“Without us prompting them or asking them—the dispatchers took this to a whole new level, all on their own,” Hilles said. “They started watching these videos—with audio on—and it was like they were there on the call with the officer. If an officer was by himself, it was like he wasn’t, because there was a dispatcher or two there watching him and following along the whole time. It made a huge change in the efficiency of the officer, but also in the efficiency of dispatch.

“The dispatchers would start running the plate on the car that we would have a traffic stop on, just from watching it on the video—before the officer would call it out [on the radio]. As the officer was at the window of a car or in the house dealing with a domestic [incident], the officer would be getting the suspect’s information or the victim’s information.

“Before they would call it out over the radio, the dispatcher would be running that social-security number or that driver’s-license number and checking these people for active warrants, how many times we’ve been there before, [etc.]. So, when the officer did call in, there was no delay; the dispatchers already had all of that information ready. It was nothing that we asked them to do. But [dispatchers] took it upon themselves to start doing it, and it was absolutely amazing. It made the whole process so much faster.”

And the additional capability has not proven to be a burden to dispatchers to dated, according to Hilles.

“At our department, [dispatchers] are 100% invested in this and absolutely love this,” he said. “If we were to tell them, ‘We’re not going to let you watch the videos anymore,’ there probably would be a battle.”

Officers are notified on the Axon body camera when its video is being livestreamed—something described as a “guardian angel” role by a dispatcher that provides a bit of peace of mind for an officer in the field, according to Hilles.

“I will look down [at the body camera] to see if someone is watching me—it’s nice,” Hilles said. “When you see that ‘Live” written across the top of your body camera, it gives you a bit of reassurance to know that, if you’re alone, you’re not really alone, because someone is watching over you.”

Hilles noted that his agency typically has two dispatchers monitoring four or five officers in the field at any given time. Sgt. Monica Lee of the Daytona Beach Police Department—a much larger department than Alliance—said her agency only allows six supervisors to view livestreamed video from officers’ body-worn cameras.

“We are very busy in Daytona, where we even triage our calls that come in … we just go from high-priority [calls] to low,” Lee said during the APCO session, explaining the rationale behind the policy. “So, our dispatchers are very busy, and a lot of times, we’re short dispatchers. I think it just depends on the size [of the agency].”

Daytona Beach dispatchers do leverage officers’ location as provided by the Axon body-worn cameras, according to Lee. Supervisors are able to view livestreamed video of officers only when officers are in recording mode—protecting privacy when eating lunch, for example, she said.

In addition, Daytona Beach supervisors can receive alerts on their cell phone or computer to view livestream video when an officer draws a weapon, Lee said.

Lee and Hilles said the livestreaming capability is particularly valuable when circumstances dictate that an officer cannot call for help on a radio.

“How many times do officers get in a foot pursuit or end up fighting with someone on the roadside, and you don’t get a broadcast from that officer until the fight’s over, because that’s first time he’s had a chance to grab that radio and call out?” Hilles said.

Hilles cited one such situation that occurred this summer when an officer in his department responded to what was believed to be a “simple neighbor dispute,” but it actually was an active fight.

“One of the dispatchers was paying attention [to the video from the body-worn camera] and immediately called it out and said, ‘I need someone to get out here to this unit, because he’s actively in a fight with these three guys,’” Hilles said. “Luckily, we had another car right around the corner, and they got there.

“Otherwise, there was no one coming, because he was not going to get to his radio; he would have been on his own. So, this is huge, huge technology.”

Cornelia Sigworth, Axon’s senior director for strategic customer engagement, said the idea of livestreaming video from Axon body-worn cameras was originated by the dispatch center serving the Texas Medical Center small police department in Houston. That effort resulted in “an 84% increase in dispatcher efficiency and satisfaction,” despite the calls for service increasing during the measured period, she said.

Fresno (Calif.) Police Department has just launched a pilot program to provide insights about how viewing video from body-worn cameras works at scale, as well as its integration into the Axon-owned Fusus real-time-crime-center platform, Sigworth said.

“With Fresno, they are testing it just with their motor unit—so it is a smaller unit of the department—and with a limited number of dispatchers, so we can see how this goes,” Sigworth said during the APCO session.

“The dispatchers love the Fusus now. They love to see where the officers are and what’s happening with them. There’s some real excitement on the part of the dispatchers around the potential benefits of this. I think they especially see value in those critical situations or when they’re uncertain about the officer’s safety.”

But there are several significant questions that will be explored during the Fresno pilot and real-world utilization of the livestreaming technology, Sigworth said.

“Is there a wellness element that we need to understand, in terms of dispatchers? Because all of a sudden, you’re seeing things you’ve never seen before in your life, and you cannot really turn away from it. What is the impact of that?

“What additional training is necessary for dispatchers? This came up with Texas Medical Center around use-of-force training. When you see force, it’s ugly—whether it’s an appropriate use of force, or not. How do we know what training dispatchers need about what use of force looks like, so they are not errantly reporting excessive force or appropriately reporting unnecessary force. So, that’s sort of a big issue.”