Most C.R. police cars don't have dash cameras

Dozens of Cedar Rapids police patrol cars are without in-car cameras as the department undergoes a technology upgrade.

Dash cams, as they are commonly known, record through the windshield of the patrol cars, and have been used by police departments in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City for about the last 15 years. Camera footage is sometimes used as evidence in court and can provide context when there is a citizen complaint, police said.

But only 14 of the city's 66 police cars currently are equipped with working cameras after the city's previous vendor filed for bankruptcy last year. The department is in the midst of an upgrade that is expected to take about two years and cost around $340,000.

All of the patrol cars were equipped with ICOP Digital dashboard cameras until earlier this year, when they were all taken out of service. Malfunctions were mounting, and there was no way to make repairs, police said.

“It got to a point where sometimes we had video, but no audio,” Lt. Brent Long said. “Our (system) memory started to fail, and so we thought, we had better take the Band-Aid off things.”

The new Panasonic camera systems cost about $5,200 each. One camera records action in front of the patrol car, while another monitors any suspects in the back seat. Three other cameras can be added to the system to provide 360 degrees of surveillance around the patrol car.

Footage is captured automatically one minute before and one minute after the emergency lights on the patrol car are activated, or if the car is in a crash with enough force to deploy airbags.

Lt. Walter Deeds, who is in charge of the dash camera project, said about a dozen of the current Ford Crown Victoria patrol cars have been retrofitted with the new Panasonic cameras. As the department transitions to Chevrolet Caprice patrol cars, they will arrive with the new cameras already installed.

Traffic camera revenue will help pay for about half of the project, police said. The City Council approved spending some of that money on patrol car upgrades two years ago.

Casey Drew, the city's finance director, said the rest of the project will be funded through the police department's operations budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

“From my point of view, it is a necessary expense that will pay for itself in the short term and the long term,” Deeds said.

Long, who handles internal affairs, said dash cameras provide valuable evidence in court, especially when they record field sobriety tests during traffic stops. He said the patrol cars already equipped with new dashboard cameras are being assigned to officers who regularly make those stops.

“Anything serious that we have going on, we're going to try to get a camera there,” Long said. “That protects us, protects the public and it helps in court.”

Long said there is always concern when officers have fewer tools to work with, but said constant training will help them adjust.

“Our expectations won't drop,” Long said. “Our expectations are that officers will treat the public the same, whether the camera is on them or not.”

Cedar Rapids police first purchased ICOP Digital cameras in 2005. Deeds said ICOP offered a cutting-edge product at the time, and it was the only vendor police could find that didn't require installation of equipment in the car's trunk. They went ahead with the purchase based on advice from the city's fleet services department, he said.

At the time of the final purchase in 2008, the ICOP cameras cost about $300 more than the new Panasonic units.

Marion police upgraded to the Panasonic system in all 11 of their patrol cars about two years ago. Each system uses all five cameras, to provide 360-degree coverage.

“We are completely satisfied with them,” Capt. Mike De La Mater said. “The front camera system is the best one on the market. It shows 80 degrees, compared to 41 or 42 degrees for the others.”

Deeds said Panasonic is also the manufacturer of the laptop computers in all Cedar Rapids patrol cars, which should result in fewer technical problems.

“In the end, things happen for a reason,” Deeds said. “Honestly, I think this has benefitted us, because we re-examined our needs and determined how to integrate our systems, which will dramatically cut down on our IT issues.”