When will we see body-worn cameras on LPD officers?
Chief Douglas Stephens: Another good question. That is obviously a hot topic across the nation. In Littleton, we have been looking at body-worn cameras, and we were planning on beginning a pilot program, were going to test the system right before the pandemic hit. So that kind of put that on hold for a lot of different issues, obviously, but I’m a proponent. I know most law enforcement officers are proponents of body-worn video. We think it involve or provides just another level of transparency for our organization. So folks have the opportunity to see the great work that our folks are doing on a regular basis. Then in those very rare occasions where we have critical incidents, as you see on the news quite often from around the country, it provides a perspective that people can review what’s happening and maybe learn from incidents and validate the actions the officers are taking or identify areas where we need to improve.
Excuse me. For Littleton, we’ve been, like said, looking at the systems. Part of the issues are identification of funding. Currently, with the COVID pandemic, all municipalities are feeling a little bit of a budget pinch. But we are going to be moving forward on a body-worn video. It’s a state law right now that just got passed recently with the police reform bill, and we are required to be wearing body-worn video by July 1 of 2023. Our goal is to do it before then. Once we do due diligence in identifying a vendor, identifying funding sources, there are a lot of grant opportunities out there that we’re looking for now because we want to be very responsible with the taxpayer’s money, but we want it to provide a good system that is useful for us and useful for the public as well. So no later than January 1 2020 or July 1 2023, I can promise that, but hopefully much sooner, probably realistically in 2022.