Posted: 3/4/2025 3:25:32 AM EDT
| My brother in law just started a second career as a policeman and his agency doesn’t issue body cameras. He’d like to get one—needs to be reliable, secure, easy to use and workable as a personal purchase for data storage purposes. He’s in Europe so if you know of good ones made or available there it’ll save me on shipping otherwise I’ll find something here. Thanks guys. |
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I think he would look into a system more than a single unit.. Things like storage and archiving is more important than the charge or recording time. Patrols here have a docking station with multiple cameras charging, so he can drop in a depleted camera and pick up a fresh one. So the camera would be better if it had robust file logging, so to connect one file to another. His department legal team might have to look into the camera's files to make sure it complies with their legal requirements too. |
I am just a Combat Hot-Air Balloon Pilot.. Our craft is 50X quieter than the B-2 Spirit. The enemy can't hear us until we drop bombs on them..
| He should probably use what his coworkers use. Or, a Go-pro type camera. Most body camera systems are just that—a full system with lots of integration. Probably the most popular over here are the Axon Body 4 (I think that’s the most recent version). Axon is owned by Taser. But again, it’s not designed for use by one person, it uploads to the cloud, where it’s stored for a fee, etc. |
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If he is planning on storing footage for any length of time, then he needs to decide how he is going to do that. Video footage at a high enough quality to be used for any criminal court takes up a tremendous amount of storage. Even if he is planning to only keep the footage for a short time like 30 days or something, he is looking at several terabytes of storage space for a month of standard 40 hour a week police calls, where they are allowed to turn them on and off as they respond to or leave a call for service. Some agencies want them activated full time depending on the situation, which now you are talking about terabytes per week... The camera is easy, its the data storage that is the real cost. |
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Originally Posted By Joedirt199: Needs to look into the legal aspect of it with the department. Our dept tried them several years ago and decided against issuing them further. |
Happiness is an inside job. Don't assign anyone else that much power over your life.
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Originally Posted By Mopseydocks6014: Why would they not continue use? Originally Posted By Mopseydocks6014: Originally Posted By Joedirt199: Needs to look into the legal aspect of it with the department. Our dept tried them several years ago and decided against issuing them further. Archiving footage is very expensive and oftentimes mandated by state law under the public records act. For instance video related to a homicide investigation in VA has to be retained forever. I wouldn't recommend doing it on your own - Officer why did you turn the camera off? Has the video been edited? Why did you record this particular incident and not others? You obviously were prejudiced against my client. - What you'd expect to hear in court from an average criminal defense attorney. |
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Originally Posted By Flightsimmer02: I've always thought that the camera should be in/on a pair of glasses, that way you would see what the wearer was looking at and probably a whole lot more stable than a chest worn rig. Alliance PD, Ohio has those. At least on a recent body cam incident I saw they did. |