MANSFIELD — A third state grant will allow the Mansfield Police Department to purchase an additional 23 body cameras, a second computer server and hire someone to assist in processing the videos.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday the MPD will receive another $145,183.35 in grant funding, raising the department’s grant total to $238,743.35 for the project.
The grant, the third the department has received, will pay for 23 additional cameras, a second 96-terabyte server and a new hire in the crime lab to handle the videos.
Chief Keith Porch said the department will have 60 body cameras, which would fill the current kiosk recharging system.
A $50,000 grant in February 2021 from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services allowed MPD to order 16 body cameras, charging stations, servers and related equipment.
The department was able to add another 24 body cameras thanks to another $43,560 state grant announced in November.
Porch said the city opted to purchase its own servers for storage rather than use a more expensive cloud-based system.
Part of the new grant funds will go toward a crime lab technician to process videos for the law director, prosecutor and public records requests.
“I wanted a non-sworn staff person to manage this project,” Porch said. “I need my sworn officers on the streets, not sitting in an office processing videos.”
The chief said meeting video requests can be time consuming since portions may need to be redacted to protect citizen privacy issues. He said 15 to 20 minutes of video takes an hour to view and redact material that cannot be released to the public.
“If we have a big incident with five or six officers and their body cameras, it will take a lot of time to review all of that,” he said.
“It’s very labor intensive,” Porch said, pointing out there will likely be additional state grants for such projects in 2023. “The latest grant is not only for the equipment. It’s for anything that supports the body camera project.”
When the MPD started using in-car cameras, it was managed by the traffic section, Porch said. The sergeant in charge of that effort spent “95 percent” of his day swapping out VHS tapes, making copies and meeting requests for videos, the chief said.
The chief said the person hired for the person will be told it’s a grant-funded slot with no guarantee beyond the one year. However, Porch said, it’s likely the position will need to be funded from his personnel budget if the grant dollars go away.
“It’s a very needed position. I don’t see the need going away,” the chief said. “If we are going to have these camera projects, we need to do them the right way. I can’t keep dropping 80 things on my existing staff and grind them into the ground.”
Porch said all of the department’s officers have been trained in body camera usage. That effort began in early December.
“We are still working out the bugs in terms of functionality, but there have been no major hurdles at this point. We are just getting the officers into the habit of using the equipment daily during their patrol functions,” he said.
