Police officers in Laramie continue to use body cameras in an effort to be transparent to the public.
Body cameras are used by the Laramie Police Department and University of Wyoming Police Department for many reasons including transparency, safety, and evidence.
Laramie Police/Community Services Lieutenant Gwen Smith said the use of body cameras was part of the National Best Standard for police officers and is a big reason for the adoption of body cameras by the department.
Body cameras help in a variety of situations that officers find themselves in.
“Essentially we use them anytime we have a law enforcement contact, so whether that be a traffic stop, some sort of response to a call that was called into either a dispatch center or through any of our other reporting means,” said University of Wyoming Police Department Chief Mike Samp.
Body cameras also help keep all parties accountable in these situations.
Samp said the cameras help in cases that have questions regarding officer and citizen conduct and legal authority.
The Laramie Police Department uses the cameras’ footage to review any instance when force above the level of handcuffing is used by any officer.
“Footage gets reviewed by three or four people in our command staff,” said Smith. “That’s really helpful for us to watch to make sure that what the officers reporting in their report is consistent with what they were doing and that nothing out of policy happened.”
Also, Samp said the footage can be crucial as evidence in situations where the actions lead to a prosecution case.
“We do attempt to be as transparent and accountable as possible and all of our policies related to body worn cameras and all our other activities are actually posted publicly so they can be researched and from a public accountability standpoint,” said Samp. “That’s the approach that we’ve taken here at the university.”
Even though body cameras help show what happened in a situation, there are some drawbacks to the cameras.
Smith said that one of the drawbacks that she has seen is the limit of only one angle taken by the camera. Different angles show different things about one situation and sometimes neglect the whole picture.
Also, there are always issues that can show up when technology is involved.
“They’re subject to failure,” said Samp. “We don’t live in exactly the best climate to support electronics being outside for long hours, especially in the wintertime, so occasionally we do have technological failures and that’s a frustration on our end.”
Both the University of Wyoming Police Department and Laramie Police department agree that body cameras help in many situations and are an essential part of department operations.
