Augusta sheriff's deputies begin body camera testing: Can residents expect a full rollout?

AUGUSTA COUNTY — Will Augusta County Sheriff's Office get body cameras for its deputies?

The issue has been a point of contention in supervisor meetings for years, with votes, protesters, counterprotesters, the sheriff, an arrested deputy, deputies on leave, grants, and budgets each taking the spotlight at one point or another.

Here is where the issue has stood and presently stands, with a hint of where it may be heading.

Sheriff's Office running a trial with body cams

Deputies with the sheriff's department are currently conducting a 60-day trial of body worn cameras, according to Lt. Leslie Snyder. Six cameras will be on patrol with the deputies.

Snyder told The News Leader the trial is using Axon body cameras. Not every officer is involved either — only a "handful" of deputies will wear the cameras during the trial.

Board gets grant list but doesn't move to apply. Yet.

In December, the Augusta County Board of Supervisors rejected outright applying to the body camera grants but asked county employees to gather a list of available grants.

The document was presented to the supervisors Jan. 11. The listed grants include:

• The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services made $6.4 million in state general funds available for law enforcement agencies in Virginia to apply for one-time grants for the purchasing, operating and maintaining of body-worn camera systems.

• Bureau of Justice Assistance assists law enforcement agencies to purchase or lease body-worn cameras, both to establish body camera systems or expand existing body camera programs. According to the county-prepared document, the grant could provide $2,000 per camera. This grant requires a 50% match.

• The Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program provides funds for a wide variety of programs, including body cameras. The department already receives funds from this grant, with the document reading, “The County currently uses the grant to fund to fund additional AED's within the Sheriff's Office. This year it was funded at $14,229.”

Notably, the supervisors did not provide any additional instructions to county employees. Given the December vote, it appears creating the list is the last action the board will take in the foreseeable future.

According to Fitzgerald, the state has leftover American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds that “may still be out there” that could create “opportunities” for funding body cameras. This is in the earliest stages, if it happens at all, with Fitzgerald saying, “That’s a discussion that’s been going around.”

What would it cost?

The largest argument against body cameras is the pricetag.

According to the June 2022 board minutes, Sheriff Smith would rather the funds go to “new vehicles, better pay for his staff, and more deputies," and he praised Supervisor Michael Shull for not wanting to raise taxes in order to put the program in place.

In April 2022, Shull estimated body cameras would cost about $1 million per year and would require adding two cents to the real estate tax rate. Seaton, however, said the sheriff would “only need 58 cameras” and the estimated cost would be closer to $600,000.

A one cent real estate tax increase considered in the 2023 budget discussions would have raised $836,884 for the cameras annually, but this was voted down before the budget was approved.

Despite the cost, a question about body cameras in the 2022 Zen City Community Survey found that, of the 790 residents who responded, 86% of respondents “completely support” or “mostly support” providing body and dash cameras to deputies and 73% “completely support” or “mostly support” using county taxes to fund the program.

Without cams, more questions about the three Augusta County deputies on leave

Since The News Leader’s previous coverage of body cameras for Augusta County, Snyder confirmed there are three deputies on administrative leave. Previous press releases confirmed two of the deputies, but she could not confirm the third, citing personnel confidentiality.

In at least one of these cases, the leave began after a video taken by a third party emerged. Deputy Andrew Simonetti was placed on leave after a video emerged showing him immediately tackling a suspect when he arrived on the scene after receiving a call for backup.

A second Augusta deputy, Sgt. William Mikolay, was charged by the Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office with malicious wounding, misdemeanor assault, and battery. In December, Seaton said, "None of us know if the deputy is guilty or innocent, yet a body camera could have easily clarified and prevented the situation.”

How can video help?

Video creates a record to hold those in the wrong accountable, suspects and officers alike. A prime example is the Irvo Otieno case. Officers and Central State Hospital held down Otieno, a mental health patient in custody, suffocating him. Otieno died.

Video showing the incident led to second degree murder charges filed against seven Henrico County sheriff’s deputies and a now-former Central State Hospital security officer. Trials are scheduled for each, running from the beginning of June to the end of December.

In May 2021, an undisclosed deputy shot and killed Jeffery Bruce, an Augusta County man previously convicted of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl. Deputies responded to a burglary call, and Bruce, not wanting to return to jail, charged at the deputy with a knife. The shooting sparked ample public debate, with The News Leader attempting to verify accounts of the shooting, Bruce’s family speaking out about his mental health struggles, and public defenders calling for improvements to systems making police aware of mental health issues when responding to calls.

By early July, the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation cleared the deputy of any wrongdoing. However, body camera footage could have informed much of the work to verify what happened that day by investigators, the sheriff’s office, and reporters, and provided the public a clearer picture of the day’s events, as soon as immediately after the shooting.

Success of body cams depends less on the video footage content, and more on who gets to view it

Another critical component of accountability is not just the recording of body camera footage but who gets to review the footage. A recent joint investigation between ProPublica and The New York Times found that when police departments alone have access to the footage, footage is often either not released or released with edits leaving out critical details. When reporters reviewed all civilians killed by police officers in June 2022, only 33 of the 79 total cases released footage.

The reporting ends with recommendations from George Mason University, who pointed to the New Orleans Police Department’s use of body camera footage. The NOPD uses the footage similar to the way professional sports teams review and improve performance. Four auditors were hired to comb through the footage and flag problematic behavior before small patterns become big incidents. New Orlean’s civilian oversight agency, who can directly access the footage, showed a reduction in both use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints, directly attributed to both the cameras and the oversite.

The story is also available in an edited, audio form on The Daily podcast.

The Times investigation reflects a policy position Smith previously told The News Leader – he said he would not release footage of officer-involved shootings or use-of-force cases because of the ongoing or subsequent criminal investigation.

In 2021, Smith told The News Leader, “Even if I had it, I wouldn’t release it anyway.”

Under Virginia State Code § 2.2-3706, footage related to an ongoing criminal investigation is not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests and release is up to the discretion of law enforcement. The law currently says evidence is "not required to be disclosed," not that it cannot be disclosed.

Protesters, counter-protesters ask for the same thing

Body cameras came into sharp focus after a disagreement between the Augusta County Board of Supervisors and Augusta County Sheriff Donald Smith in May 2021. Smith posted a response to questions from The News Leader on Facebook, writing the supervisors denied his funding request for body cameras. Supervisor Pam Carter said she couldn’t remember getting or denying a request for cameras in the department’s budget.

Protesters in favor of body cameras started making regular appearances at supervisor meetings, vocalizing their support in the public comment period. Counter-protesters arrived in support of Smith and the police department. However, despite ample tension between the groups, both groups asked the supervisors to get body cameras on the officers.

Before 2013, the video system was a mismashed collection of dashboard, handheld, and body cameras stored in the back of several vehicles. Without a data storage system, a difficult to work with collection of CDs gathered in the office.

Smith told The News Leader the department used to have body cameras, saying “I’m not doing a grant for a GoPro, we already tried in 2013.” Smith referred to a grant allowing the department to purchase between 10 to 15 GoPro cameras. According to Smith, the software also allowed officers to edit footage, meaning anything uploaded through the system could have been edited already, according to Smith.

Former Augusta officer Trevor Ross disagreed, telling The News Leader, “The internal records management system had an option to attach files to a case number and that was where [GoPro footage] was attached to. If you looked up a certain incident, it gives you the narratives, specifics on date, time and all of that. It will then tell you if there were any attachments such as pictures or videos.”

Smith also noted that the Staunton and Waynesboro body camera systems used a central docking station for the cameras. This would not work for the Augusta department because, “Some of my deputies live 45 minutes away from the sheriff’s office. So I've got to have a system in place that when they mark on from their house, their body camera, they can pick it up out of their car and stick it on them and they're ready to go.”

Seaton suggested the creation of a body camera committee to ease protesters and counter protesters frequently positioned outside of the sheriff's office. By August 2021, Smith stated the department was testing cameras from different vendors and had put together an internal committee on the subject.

Little movement in 2022

On May 25, 2022, Supervisor Pam Carter said the board had not yet received numbers on either the cost or how many cameras the county would need from the sheriff. In April, Seaton moved that any excess budget, totaling $447,711 that year, be placed in a contingency account to pay for the body cameras, but the motion was defeated five-to-two, with Seaton and Supervisor Pam Carter voting in favor.

On May 11, Supervisor Butch Wells said that he would support body cameras if they were given to all deputies, not just some of the officers. Shull agreed, saying the county would need to have twice as many cameras as they do personnel that would use them.

A disagreement emerged after several members of the public came forward with donations for the body camera program. On May 25, the board approved creating an account to hold such donations. However, on June 8, Morelli moved to rescind the account, saying that neither the board or Sheriff Smith called for donations.

Smith himself came back to the board in June. Smith asked the board close the donation account, expressed his desire that a Nexus GoFundMe page and petition not be considered. The board ultimately voted to rescind the account on June 22, not accepting $6,300 in donations, with only Seaton voting against.

Body cameras voted down in 2023

A line item in the proposed 2023 Augusta County budget gave an answer. A one cent increase in the real estate tax rate, from 63 cents per $100 to 64 cents, was proposed to fund the $836,884 proposed for the cameras. This budget was voted down, and Supervisor Gerald Garber moved to adopt the budget without the body cameras, saying he felt it wasn’t the right time but “I think it will come.” This version of the budget was approved.

Supervisor Michael Shull told The News Leader he was hoping for additional support from the state in the event body cameras are mandated by the legislature.

“The state hasn’t mandated it yet,” Shull said, laying out his hopes for the future of the camera issue. “I’m kind of sitting waiting on the state to mandate it and then once they do, hopefully they’ll help fund it and we’ll move on from there.”

Current Chair Jeffery Slaven pointed to the then-ongoing reassessment as the right time to consider an effective increase in taxes. However, when he approved as chair of the board in January, Slaven said "no sir" when asked if would support body cameras for the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office.

In December, Seaton moved to apply for body camera grants, which was defeated six-to-one. Seaton then moved county employees create the grant list, approved in a five-to-two vote, with Slaven and Shull voting against. The budget process was again mentioned.

“Once again I want to mention that it’s a little premature because no decision has been made,” said Supervisor Caroline Bragg responded. “I’m not going to say one way or another, but you can’t apply for something you may not do."

“We don’t have to accept the money if it’s not in the budget,” Seaton replied. “At least we would know, for the budget, how much we would have to offset what we would need to pay for."

With the county approaching the end of the 2024 reassessment, the tax rate will soon be up for discussion. Whether the board moves on body cameras at the same time remains to be seen.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Augusta sheriff deputies begin body camera testing: Can residents expect a full rollout?