North Carolina agency turns to body-worn camera system from VIEVU, Motorola Solutions

Buncombe County plans to use the 70 body-worn cameras—funded with drug-seizure forfeiture money—for its patrol division and community-enforcement team beginning in January, after personnel are trained to use the system and some legal policies are implemented, Duncan said.

“The only pushback that we’ve gotten from the public is, ‘Yes, we want you guys to have cameras. But, if you respond to a call at my house and you turn [the camera] on, I don’t want somebody to be able to get [the video] through a public-information request,’” he said. “I completely understand that.

“We have a really good relationship with our community. In my experiences, we’ve not had a lot of issues or a lot of doubt with the sheriff’s office in terms of how we perform our duties or use force. There have been very few complaints, but I think it’s really important that we stay ahead of that curve.”

Many of the policies that need to be established are more operational and logistical in nature, Duncan said.

“A lot of the real issues around the camera are not around the use of the camera but the logistics of how long you keep the video, retention schedules, what’s a public document, who’s going to administratively go in and decide what videos we keep and what videos we get rid of after 30 days, because you’ve got a big storage issue, as well,” he said.

Judy Walker, product manager for Motorola Solutions, said she is seeing increased interest in body-worn cameras by law-enforcement agencies—particularly larger agencies—during the past year.

“In the past couple of years, more of the adoption has been with smaller agencies, although I’m not exactly sure why,” Walker said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “In the last year or so, it seems like more of the larger cities, larger sheriff agencies or state agencies are starting to consider the use of body-worn cameras across a larger fleet.”