Anaheim Police may be first in OC with body cameras

Monday, September 8, 2014

The Anaheim Police Department may become the first in Orange County to require its officers to wear body cameras while on patrol.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (KABC) -- The Anaheim Police Department may become the first in Orange County to require its officers to wear body cameras while on patrol. The department is ready to join others across the country that have already made this move.

The police chief plans to ask the Anaheim City Council Tuesday for money to pay for more than 200 devices. If the council approves, officers could be wearing the cameras by next April.

"If an officer is going on a call for service in which a resident is called or if they're self-initiating activity, they would be recording," said Anaheim Police Lt. Bob Dunn.

The proposal for video cameras comes two years after civil unrest in the city sparked by back-to-back officer-involved shootings that led to the deaths of two men in unrelated cases.

"We have a lot of lessons learned out of that 2012 unrest, and transparency is something that's very important. It offers the community another level of transparency with the police department," said Dunn.

Some residents say they're OK with cameras if they stay on all of the time.

"If they have control of the video recording then they'll be like, 'Oh, we're going to stop this guy and not record it,'" said Anaheim resident Angel Cruz.

The Anaheim Police Association says the cameras, that can also record audio, can help protect officers against false allegations, but the union is concerned about recording crime victims or witnesses.

"Confidential informants out there who are giving the police, patrol officers information on crime, we want to protect their identity also. So we don't want to film in those situations," said Anaheim Police Association President Kerry Condon.

"We want to be sensitive to those things, and all of those factors are what we're considering as we draft this policy," said Dunn.

As policy for their use is worked out, the chief plans to ask the city council Tuesday for money for the devices. The chief says the cost is no more than $1.15 million over the next five years.