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Agenda Item 10.
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| City Council Meeting |
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| Subject: |
| Replacement of Police Department In-Car Camera and New Body-Worn Camera System |
| RECOMMENDATION |
| Receive and File |
| BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION |
The Brea Police Department has been audio-recording citizen contacts since 1973. Brea was the first agency in the state to have this type of program. The program continues today and has been copied by many other individual officers and agencies. Police officers currently record contacts with digital audio recorders made by PUMA. Officers manually upload recordings from their recorder onto a local server.
Since 2010, the Police Department has been using an in-car video camera system made by L3. The system consists of a digital video camera mounted on the windshield and an interior camera that records prisoner activity in the back seat. This system wirelessly transfers video from the police car to a local server.
The current in-car camera system is more than 10 years old. The software and hardware are obsolete and L3 no longer supports them. Replacement parts are no longer available for the cameras. Approximately two years ago, the Newport Beach Police Department stopped using their L3 system and graciously provided spare parts for Brea's system. If not for that donation, many of Brea's fleet cameras would be permanently out of service. The Police Department has two interview rooms in the Detective Bureau. The interview room cameras are also L3 cameras and record and store on the same system as the in-car videos.
As stated above, the L3 system videos are stored locally. Recently, this server ran out of memory and videos stopped uploading. The videos began to be stored in the in-car DVRs. Once the DVRs were full, the cars cameras stopped recording. The Information Technology Division had to purchase an additional server and, because of the age of the system, had to work with L3 to get the new server configured to handle the videos.
In today’s environment, prosecutors and defense attorneys have come to expect law enforcement to provide video evidence in nearly all cases. The public expects law enforcement to be transparent and provide evidence, particularly video evidence, when facing allegations of misconduct. Recent legislation has given members of the public even more access to police records (including video recordings) than ever before. Many law enforcement agencies across the nation have chosen to employ body-worn cameras to provide evidence in criminal prosecution, to thoroughly investigate alleged misconduct, and to be completely transparent with the public.
Anaheim Police Department and Fullerton Police Department were the first agencies in Orange County to use body-worn cameras, implementing their programs in 2014. The Brea Police Department began studying implementing a body-worn camera system in 2016, but the costs at the time were prohibitive – particularly cloud-based storage. In addition, there were technology shortcomings that were still being worked through, like battery life that did not match the length of officers’ shifts and undesirably low-quality video.
Most police agencies in Orange County now use body-worn cameras or are in the process of implementing a body-worn camera system. Many of the technology shortcomings have been overcome, and data storage is much more reasonably priced. Most recently, La Habra, Placentia, Costa Mesa, and the Orange County Sheriff Department have implemented body-worn camera programs. It seems inevitable that every Police Department will eventually implement a body-worn camera system.
Current technology allows for the integration between in-car cameras and body-worn camera systems. The two cameras (in-car and body-worn) can be synced, allowing the in-car camera to automatically start the body-worn camera, and the body-worn camera to automatically start the in-car camera. Systems have automatic triggers that turn on cameras without the officer having to do anything. Triggers include events like activation of lights or sirens, high speeds, collisions or other impacts, and the opening of a K9 compartment. The synchronization and automatic activation triggers have increased the number of videos created at each event by reducing the factor of human error (forgetting to turn on the recorder).
Currently, the Police Department’s in-car video system and digital audio recording systems operate on separate systems. Neither of these systems integrates with Spillman, the Police Department’s Records Management System (RMS). This lack of integration has required the Police Department to adjust protocols to accommodate the different systems. Police officers are expected to search for and mark each recording (videos in L3 and audio in PUMA) to link it to an incident.
The Police Department is frequently required to provide evidence, including officer-generated video and audio recordings, to the public, to prosecutors, and defense attorneys. In legal terms, this process is called discovery. Evidence technicians have to spend significant amounts of time searching for and reproducing evidence from each of these systems to abide by discovery laws.
Current technology allows videos (in-car and body-worn) to be stored in a cloud-based location. In addition, several videos can be linked to an incident or event and can be reproduced simply and efficiently within a single system. Many of these storage systems allow outside evidence such as audio recordings, crime scene photos, and surveillance videos to be stored along with the in-car and body-worn cameras, creating a digital evidence vault.
The Police Department contacted Deputy District Attorney Rahul Gupta. DDA Gupta is the head of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office Technology Unit. One of DDA Gupta’s roles is to oversee the implementation and operation of body-worn camera systems at police agencies in Orange County. In discussing the needs of the Police Department, DDA Gupta said that only two systems were capable of meeting the needs and desires of a Police Department of Brea's size: Axon and WatchGuard.
DDA Gupta discussed the benefits and drawbacks of each system.
- Axon was the system used by the majority of Orange County agencies, and Axon had developed a system that allowed electronic transmission of evidence videos to the District Attorney’s office.
- WatchGuard was being used by several agencies in Orange County, namely Newport Beach, Tustin, Laguna Beach, and most recently Costa Mesa. According to DDA Gupta, WatchGuard’s video quality was superior to Axon’s.
- DDA Gupta pointed out one more WatchGuard benefit. WatchGuard is a Motorola company. The Police Department uses Spillman for RMS, and Spillman is also a Motorola company. Since they share a parent company, this would allow automated correlation between videos and incidents, which DDA Gupta suggested would vastly increase the disclosure of evidence to his office.
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| FISCAL IMPACT/SUMMARY |
In FY18-19, the City Council approved $250,000 to replace the Police Department’s outdated in-car camera system and PUMA digital audio recorders and server. The Police Department spent approximately $43,000 of that money to replace the PUMA recorders, software, and hardware. The remaining $207,000 has been carried over twice (FY19-20 and FY20-21), and is now available to put toward an in-car camera and body-worn camera system.
The Police Department contacted sales representatives from both Axon and WatchGuard, and supplied them with Brea's needs. Axon and WatchGuard provided price estimates based on those needs.
AXON
Axon’s estimated cost would be approximately $240,000 in year one ($185,000 for body-worn cameras, $55,000 for in-car cameras). Year one would include installation, training, and implementation costs. Axon’s estimated cost would be approximately $160,000 per year for years 2-5 ($105,000 for body-worn cameras, $55,000 for in-car cameras). Year 2-5 costs would include storage and licensing subscription fees. The total five-year cost for Axon is approximately $880,000.
Axon’s price includes warranties on all hardware. In addition, Axon offers hardware “refreshes” during the life of the contract. They refresh (replace with upgrades) the body-worn cameras twice over the course of five years and refresh the in-car cameras at the end of five years. This seems to be a method Axon uses to encourage a renewal of their contract at the end of five years.
WATCHGUARD
WatchGuard’s estimated cost would be approximately $400,000 in year one ($130,000 for body-worn cameras, $270,000 for in-car cameras). Year one’s price would include installation, training, and implementation costs. WatchGuard’s estimated cost would be approximately $53,000 per year for years 2-5 ($36,000 for body-worn cameras and $17,000 for in-car cameras). Year 2-5 costs would include storage and licensing fee subscriptions. The total five-year cost for WatchGuard is approximately $612,000.
WatchGuard’s purchase price includes the purchase of warranties for body-worn cameras (3 years) and in-car cameras (5 years). Although the system will likely last 6-7 years, the total cost of WatchGuard considers the need to replace equipment after five years. This would require setting aside approximately $57,000 per year ($22,000 for body-worn cameras and $33,000 for in-car cameras), starting in FY21-22, to replace all hardware (cameras, routers, access points) at the end of five years. The total five-year cost for the replacement fund is approximately $285,000. With the replacement costs factored in, the total five-year cost for WatchGuard is approximately $897,000.
PERSONNEL COSTS
While having an integrated digital evidence vault should streamline the discovery process, the Police Department recognizes that the increased volume of video evidence would also increase the workload sufficiently and would require an employee whose sole task would be to comply with the digital discovery requests. In fact, it is common for police agencies to employ one or more employees whose sole job is to process discovery requests. The Police Department will seek to add a Part-Time Police Records Technician position to manage video discovery requests. The total compensation for a part-time Records Technician is $44,267 per year. As volume of video increases, the Police Department will likely seek to convert this to a full-time position or two part-time positions. This is anticipated to occur in years four (FY24-25) or year five (FY25-26) of this five-year project.
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| RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED: |
William Gallardo, City Manager
Prepared by: Christopher Harvey, Lieutenant
Concurrence: Adam Hawley, Acting Police Chief
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