Deputies to Test Tiny Videocams

Are Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies turning into Robocops?

Armed with video cameras mounted on their chests, these body-cam-wearing deputies look a bit like automatons. A lens peers out from a neat, little black box attached to a vest under the uniform. It’s hard to know whether to look at the deputies’ eyes or into the camera.

Regardless, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department could be the first in the nation to sport the latest in law enforcement technology.

If the cameras are successful in a pilot program, announced Monday by Sheriff Lee Baca, they will be mandatory throughout the department. That’s $4 million in tiny video cameras and microphones, among other things, both in patrol cars and on officers’ bodies.

But a few nagging problems remain: First, the cameras are operated at the deputies’ discretion, meaning that they can turn them off whenever they want. Second, the videotapes must be stored for about 24 months, meaning that departmentwide, the cameras would generate about 295,000 tapes per year. Third, questions remain about the privacy rights of individuals caught on videotape--will their defense attorneys be told about these tapes? Will they have access to them?

Baca has high hopes that the cameras will boost the public’s perception that his deputies are doing their jobs fairly and within the law, and he believes that the tapes will provide a valuable tool in court. The tapes also may answer all those prickly concerns about racial profiling, Baca believes. The sheriff, along with Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, has declined to monitor whether officers are engaging in “racial profiling”--stopping motorists on the basis of their skin color rather than any possible criminal activity.

“This system will ensure we’re stopping people for the right reasons,” Baca said after a news conference at the department’s Temple City station.

Baca said he is considering establishing a departmental policy governing the use of the video cameras. Deputies could be required to use the cameras for all traffic stops and all investigations into criminal activity.

Now, 14 deputies at the Temple City station have the video cameras, and in two months five deputies in the Century station will try them out. The pilot program is costing the county more than $150,000, including $30,000 for the tapes, dubbing and storage cabinets.

Because the tapes will be kept for up to 24 months, Baca said, the department will store them in a secured facility.

Captains shrug when asked about the massive amounts of tapes that will accumulate in their stations until they are shipped to the warehouse.

“Hundreds of these tapes are going to have nothing of importance on them at all,” said Capt. Neal Tyler, who oversees the Temple City station. “Maybe one will have something we’re interested in.”

If Baca orders the cameras departmentwide, the county will become the first in the nation to have law enforcement officers with both the body cams and the car cams, said Bob Kincade, vice president of SEMCO, the Vista, Calif.-based company that makes the equipment. A small black box sits on the deputies’ chest, strapped to a nylon vest worn under the uniform shirt. On the vest is a battery pack, transmitter and antenna. The patrol cars have a small monitor and a recording machine in the trunk.

Many law enforcement agencies across the country are using video cameras in their squad cars. The Los Angeles Police Department is beginning to install the cameras in all patrol cars; the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has been using them for more than eight years.

Baca said that the department has reviewed the video camera process with attorneys and that the tapes have been deemed legal, as well as admissible evidence in court.

The tapes will be particularly useful for traffic stops, Baca said, now that national attention has been focused on the issue of racial profiling.