SHELBY – The Shelby Police Department took a major step in updating department technology with the addition of five body cameras for its officers.
While the use of body cameras has been somewhat controversial in law enforcement circles, Shelby Police Chief Lance Combs advocated for their use as a way to boost his officers’ actions, as well as a teaching instrument.
“We’ve got to use every tool available to us to try and do our jobs,” he said. “The goal here isn’t to catch our officers doing something wrong. We want to build the confidence and trust in the community.”
According to Combs, body cameras have been part of the conversation with area chiefs for some time. Recently, the Mansfield Police Department discussed implementing body cameras, but cited cost and public privacy as road blocks. Combs said statewide, the concern among departments was that body cameras would become an unfunded mandate.
“We saw that body cameras were coming, and we weren’t sure how that was going to work,” Combs said. “The initial thought came after a lot of pretty prominent shootings, so the thought was to make all policemen wear them at all times and record everything that happens to protect the police.
“When you start to get into the minutiae, there are a lot of questions.”
Police wearing body cameras became a national discussion after a number of high-profile officer-involved shootings. In Shelby, the last officer-involved shooting was that of a fleeing felon in the 1970s.
“You can’t take away the seriousness of that, and it’s traumatic for the family, for the community, for the agency, and very traumatic for the officer and the officer’s family,” Combs said. “Our goal is we want our officers to be engaged in the community so you have a better handle of what’s going on.”
By training his officers to be approachable and integrated in the community, Combs hopes they can use their personal relationships to diffuse potentially dangerous situations.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not going to have a shooting and it doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a justified shooting, it just means that if we’re doing our best every day to try and engage with the community, so when those things happen we can lessen the sting,” Combs said.
The goal in implementing body cameras in Shelby is two-fold: transparency, and gathering evidence. Combs said one of the biggest reasons for capturing video via body cameras is not because the department is concerned about what officers are doing, it’s to protect officers from false accusations.
“We’re at a state right now where people don’t believe the police and everybody is trying to impugn somebody else’s character or honesty,” Combs said. “If we have evidence of it then there’s no question.”
On March 22, Shelby City Council passed a resolution accepting grant money from the Office of Criminal Justice Services to purchase body cameras. The $8,000 Byrne Justice Assistance grant allowed the Shelby Police Department to purchase five body cameras, a six-bay docking station and a separate computer to store the data. Typically one body camera costs approximately $800.
Combs originally applied for a $38,000 grant that would allow one body camera and charging station for each of Shelby’s 15 officers. The full grant also would have replaced all the department’s in-car cameras and allowed for a feature that would sync the car’s video to the officer’s body camera video.
“We have a lot of instances where things happen outside of the view of the in-car camera,” Combs explained. “Enter the body camera, and we can see both perspectives.”
This is just the first step in updating officer technology at the Shelby Police Department. Combs has also requested donations from local service clubs, and created a three-year budget plan to add more cameras as well as in-car video systems.
“My goal would be to have everything replaced in three years,” Combs said. “When you share body cameras it’s cheaper getting started, but when you’re using something 24 hours a day it tends to wear out faster. Also, when we look at each individual’s camera, we’ll know who had it and when.”
When it comes to practical use of the cameras, Shelby wrote a new policy in January addressing privacy concerns. Per the policy, officers shall activate the cameras to record all contacts with citizens in the performance of their official duties.
When asked, officers should inform individuals they are being recorded; in locations where individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy an individual may decline to be recorded unless an arrest is being made, a search is being conducted or evidence is being collected.
According to Combs, if an officer fails to activate the camera or interrupts the recording, the officer shall document why a recording was not made and the interaction will be assessed by supervisors. In addition, at least once a month supervisors must randomly review recordings to make sure the body cameras are working and officers are using the devices properly.
“Reasonable people can expect that if an officer is habitually stopping recordings to threaten people, it’s not going to take that long for us to figure it out,” Combs said. “We’re also not going to allow people to watch the videos, they can make a records request if they want to do that.”
Every time Shelby officers write a report and make a recording, they must note in the report that camera footage exists. Requests for deletion of portions of an inadvertent or accidental recording that serves no evidentiary purpose must be submitted in writing and approved by the chief of police.
As expected, there has been some resistance to using body cameras. However, after 28 years in law enforcement, Combs said apprehension is typical when introducing new technology.
“If it’s another thing I have to learn a policy for and it’s another piece of equipment I have to wear and learn how to use properly, then I think there’s always going to be some resistance because we’re asking more and more of our officers to prove to us that they’re doing their job right,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t think that’s fair, but they come into this job knowing that’s kind of the expectation.”
While Combs realizes officers cannot be trained to make split-second decisions, he emphasized that adding body cameras gives his police force the tools to think about their actions and the totality of the circumstances.
“All of that ties in because we need the support of our community when bad things happen – even in an instance if an officer has to take a life, we can’t shut that door,” the chief said. “We still need to be able to communicate and let them understand we do care. And that’s really the whole point, we have to protect the community.”
