Long Beach City Hall Says "Efforts Underway" (But No Deployment Date Mentioned) For LBPD To Implement A Body Camera Pilot Program; Announcement Follows LAPD, LA County Sheriff And Other Departments' Use/Tests Of Body Cam Technology
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(Jan. 7, 2015) -- A Long Beach City Hall press release says "efforts are underway" for Long Beach Police Department to implement a body camera pilot program.
A Jan. 7, 2015 City Hall release (containing preliminary 2014 crime statistics) mentions that LBPD Chief Robert Luna has stated that a "body-worn camera committee has been underway for approximately one year studying the various operational policies and financial effects of instituting body cameras." The release didn't identify members of the committee.
City Hall's release also says the FY15 City budget (adopted by the City Council in Sept. 2014) includes "non-recurring" [i.e. "one time"] funds to support a body camera pilot program...but LBREPORT.com's quick scan of LBPD's FY15 budget narrative text doesn't indicate a mention we could find of a body cam program.
City Hall's release also didn't cite a tenative deployment date.
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In September 2014, the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. began a six-month test program of such cameras at its Carson, Lancaster, Temple City and Century stations.
In mid-December 2014, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that LAPD will buy 7,000 body cameras, joining police departments in Chicago, New York, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., that have previously either launched pilot programs or announced plans to do
The Rialto (inland empire area) Police Department says complaints against officers fell by nearly 90% and use of force by officers declined by almost 60% in its first year of using the cameras.
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In 2013, LBPD had a rash of officer-involved shootings -- 22 (compared to 9 in 2012) of which 15 involved suspects (four were accidental discharges of a weapon and three involved dogs.)
In 2010, officers responding to a report of a man with a gun within an apartment complex mistook a gun-shaped garden hose nozzle for a weapon, leading to an officer-involved shooting that took the life of Doug Zerby. (The L.A. County District Attorney ruled the shooting justified under the circumstances; a civil jury awarded Mr. Zerby's familymembers several million dollars in a verdict against the City.)
Regarding the use of new technology in policing, in August 2012 LBPD launched a video system that taps into more than 400 cameras citywide -- a relatively small number of city owned cameras but bolstered by a large number of privately deployed cameras -- to access live video streams from multiple locations across the city. The "Long Beach Common Operating Picture" is a state of the art system that provides a force multiplier, providing swift information to help officers apprehend suspects, detectives to investigate crimes as well as providing greater officer safety.
But just months later, the City Council removed previously budgeted funding for a shotspotter gunfire location system. In November 2012, then-Vice Mayor (now Mayor) Robert Garcia and then-Councilman (now Assemblyman) Patrick O'Donnell.agendized an item that de-funded gunfire location technology that they and the rest of the City Council had approved a little over a year earlier (in an item brought by Garcia, O'Donnell, DeLong and Andrews allocating oil revenue to fund various items.) The gunfire location technology budgeted in Oct. 2011 was never deployed by LBPD management.
Shotspotter's website says cities that have deployed such a "shotspotter" system have discovered considerably more gunfire occurs than had been previously reported.
