Nick McWilliams reporting – Moving into the next era at the New Philadelphia Police Department with a new chief, law enforcement are asking for funding for updated dash cameras and software.
Captain Paul Rossi met with council Monday night to discuss the need, expressing concerns over their current equipment not functioning properly, leading to headaches and wasted man hours.
He says that currently, cruisers have cameras that might stop working correctly at any given time during a shift.
“Each car has three cameras and one microphone. Most cars, the wireless microphone isn’t recording audio at this point. In some cars, the camera system isn’t even turning on. I’ve taken pieces and parts to try and bolster our frontline cars.”
He adds that outside of removing camera units and sending them away for repair to Motorola, the cameras have fully reached the end of their life expectancy.
He expects the cost to be $65,000 for the proposed dash camera system, which Rossi says is a fraction of what the city could be on the hook for.
“This is a sum of money, but in the grand scheme of things, all it takes is one incident for someone to take us to federal court. And the zeroes and the decimal point kind of just moves over when we don’t have that.”
The proposed system would be compatible and sync with body cameras, which Rossi adds could be on the way, with Chief Tessa Pohovey applying for state grants.
The finance committee and Auditor Beth Gundy are expected to discuss the issue and determine the best route to fund the expense.
Rossi notes that turnaround from the time of approval could be eight to 10 weeks to have all units installed.
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