It’s been a year of technological advances for the New Philadelphia police department with every officer now equipped with a body worn camera.
The department received a grant to buy 30 of them that Chief Tessa Pohovey says have been in use for a couple of weeks now.
“It’s just nice to have the extra angle now as opposed to previously it was just that dash cam.”
She says having the ability to watch an incident unfold from the officer’s perspective promotes transparency and bolsters their court cases.
“And then also for any allegations of misconduct against our department. It’s going to be able to help us contest those and we can review it ourselves, and we can have a more in-depth look at these encounters.”
She also sees the footage the cameras capture as a valuable training tool.
“Whatever scenario we find ourselves in, we can go back and watch it later and kind of critique ourselves. I think it’s going to help our tactics in the long run.”
The agency also recently upgraded to a compatible cruiser dash camera system and new incident reporting software.
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