When will Tumwater police start wearing body cameras? Interim chief explains delays
The Tumwater Police Department has plans to equip officers will body-worn cameras and better in-car recording systems, but interim Police Chief Jay Mason said they likely won’t debut until 2027.
The Tumwater Public Health & Safety Committee met Feb. 11 to discuss the program and the challenges TPD has faced in getting the systems in place. Mason said the department is excited to get the program up and running, but they want to make sure they do it the right way.
“We want to make sure that we identify and procure the right equipment for our officers and for our community, and make sure that we have a proper process to launch this as quickly as we can, but also make sure it is sustainable and that we are doing right by our community,” Mason said.
The body-worn camera program budget of a little more than $1.1 million a year was approved in the biennial budget process in December. Mason said the next step is figuring out how to staff the program.
“One of our mistakes that we’ve made as an organization is we did a really good job of staffing at the technical level, but we didn’t always staff at the leadership or supervision level, and that has come back to cause some problems for us, and so we want to make sure that we do this right,” Mason said.
Mason said there’s also a community and council engagement component to the program, and an equipment identification and procurement process. After that, policy for the program would have to be written and adopted. Officers would have to be trained and then the program could be launched.
He said TPD staff have reached out to other local law enforcement agencies to see how long it took them to deploy similar programs. Lacey and Yelm’s timelines were 12 months, and Olympia and the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office’s were 18 months.
Mason said Thurston County is in the process of transitioning to a different camera vendor, and that alone will take at least 12 months, despite TCSO already having the infrastructure and policies.
He said TPD has identified 21 separate tasks that need to be done to get this program off the ground. If they complete them consecutively, it would take 45 months, or nearly four years. Instead, Mason said the department will look for efficiencies and ways to speed up the process to get the program running by January 2027.
Mason said the most critical part of getting the program off the ground is staffing. Currently, TPD is at functional capacity within its building. He said the city is trying to secure more facilities for TPD staff.
He said the program has an IT role, a body-worn camera sergeant and front office positions that need to be filled, but their hiring dates have been pushed to the summer. And when TPD has open positions, Mason said they struggle to fill them.
Mason said they also have to figure out what kind of technology TPD wants to use. He said, for example, current available body-worn cameras have different levels of artificial intelligence.
“They can even help you create reports and capture specific clips of audio, if that’s something that you want to engage with,” he said. “That’s part of understanding what the technology is and what’s best for our community.”
Committee chair Leatta Dahlhoff asked Mason how the city could best support the police department in getting the program off the ground quickly.
“I would love to be offered to be a part of those demos, public health and safety, or open it up to council, so we can better understand the nuances that you’re dealing with and how you’re adapting these potential systems to Tumwater,” she said.
“I support you in this work, and please let us know how we can continue to support you and move up the timeline, because we’re seeing the need, so trying to balance that need, accountability, transparency and all the stuff you’re working on.”
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