More transparency: Boardman trustees approve dashboard cameras for 23 police cruisers

Township trustees on Monday approved the purchase of new police dashboard cameras which officials said will improve safety for officers and increase transparency and accountability.

Police Chief Todd Werth said the 23 cameras provided in a $223,905 five-year contract approved by trustees Monday will allow officers to capture incidents from a different perspective, giving more insight into how officers are doing their jobs. They’ll go into the department’s marked patrol cruisers for traffic stops, Werth said.

He said a large portion of the costs will be covered by several grants, and the remainder of the costs will be paid over the five-year period. After the five-year subscription has expired, the city will decide whether to renew the contract with the current vendor, Motorola, or go to a different vendor, but there may be a price difference, Werth said.

“We tested several different vendors and narrowed it down to three. We did not only look at the cost of all the other vendors out there, but we really looked at what the impact would be on our system,” he said.

Werth said officials picked Motorola because of its cloud-based storage system that is “just like a cell phone, where you have an unlimited data plan.”

The video evidence the cameras collect will fit into the same cloud-based evidence library alongside the department’s body camera videos, he said.

This story was originally published July 12, 2022 at 4:23 PM.