Public gets first look at Franklin County Sheriff's body cameras
Twenty-five Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies will begin wearing body cameras this summer, with more than 600 more to be rolled after a trial period, county officials said at a public town hall meeting Thursday.
The new Motorola WatchGuard body cameras will be activated during almost every interaction with the public, Franklin County Chief Deputy Jim Gilbert said.
“We are confident that the body-worn camera program will help show transparency for our office, as well as keep our deputies and members of the community safe,” Gilbert said.
Franklin County Sheriff's deputies have not previously had body cameras, and Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce noted Thursday that implementation of the cameras has been a longtime coming.
Fatal shooting of Casey Goodson Jr. led to demands for sheriff's body cameras
The lack of body cameras on Franklin County Sheriff's deputies became a major issue after the fatal shooting of Casey Goodson Jr. by former Deputy Michael Jason Meade on Dec. 4, 2020.
Meade, who is white, had been assigned to work with a U.S. Marshals task force that day. After an unsuccessful effort to find a wanted subject, Meade contends Goodson, a Black man who had a concealed carry permit, flashed a gun as he went by Meade.
Meade got in his vehicle and followed the 23-year-old Goodson a short distance to Goodson's grandmother's house on Estates Place in the Northland neighborhood where he resided. Meade fatally shot Goodson in the back multiple times outside the home.
The shooting was the first of two slayings of Black men in Columbus by local law enforcement in December 2020. The shootings led to a public outcry and some racial justice protests in Columbus like those held in the city in late May and June that year after the murder of George Floyd by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Meade took a disability retirement from the sheriff's office months before he was indicted in December 2021 on two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide. His trial is pending
In February, county commissioners unanimously approved a $2.5 million contract with WatchGuard Video Inc. for cameras and video storage for each of the county's 565 sheriff's deputies — more than 14 months after Goodson's death.
Boyce noted that Franklin County officials have had disagreements among themselves and with the local Fraternal Order of Police union representing deputies about how the body camera program should be implemented. But he said all parties were invested in seeing body-worn cameras on Franklin County deputies.
“This is not a simple or easy policy discussion and change and development,” Boyce said. “It’s complex, for various reasons.”
Boyce thanked Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin for his “genuine spirit” in working toward the body cameras.
The Motorola WatchGuard body cameras will be assigned as part of a deputy’s equipment, like a gun or radio, Gilbert said. The cameras are Bluetooth-capable and when a deputy activates the emergency lights and sirens, the camera will also automatically activate.
If a camera isn’t activated, Dallas said the body cameras record sound and video in the moments before a camera was activated. A second playback period lasts a whole day, he said.
The footage will be uploaded each time a deputy returns to substations following a shift and places the camera back into a mount. The video will be stored and encrypted on a cloud service provided by Motorola, and administered by Franklin County.
County Administrator Kenneth Wilson said the county negotiated unlimited cloud storage.
Sheriff Baldwin noted that nobody can edit the footage that is stored as evidence unless a copy is modified to fulfill a public records request.
“Our deputies do not have the ability to go and make alterations,” Dallas said. “We can’t do that and we don’t want to."
Second body camera demo by law enforcement this month
The demonstration of new body cameras to be worn by Franklin County Sheriff's deputies is the second by local law enforcement this month.
Columbus police earlier demonstrated their own body cameras to the public that are arriving for use. Axon Enterprise (formerly TASER) will provide the city of Columbus with 2,105 body-worn cameras. The city plans to roll out the new cameras by June.
The contract with Axon, approved by the Columbus City Council in March, could run up to five years and cost taxpayers nearly $19 million.
The cameras feature what Public Safety Deputy Director George Speaks said will be top-of-the-line technology, including activating all cameras within a 30-foot radius when one camera is activated, longer video and audio recording times, and the ability to stabilize and synchronize footage from several different cameras.
Axon also will provide unlimited cloud storage for all the city’s video.
Cole Behrens is a reporter at The Columbus Dispatch covering public safety and breaking news. You can reach him at CBehrens@dispatch.com or find him on Twitter at @Colebehr_report
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Franklin County deputies will soon be wearing body cameras
