Pasco police chief ready to equip officers with body cameras

Pasco Police Chief Bob Metzger wants a body camera on each of his 71 officers.

For him, it is not only a matter of promoting transparency and accountability, but of safety for both officers and citizens.

The holdup for Pasco’s top cop has been concerns about the personal protection of people and property captured on video.

When an officer goes into a resident’s home to interview them about, say, a sex crime or an identity theft, will the living room and all its prized possessions end up on YouTube?

“Your privacy as a citizen is of more concern to me than anything else,” Metzger told the City Council at its May 23 meeting.

So he waited until Washington state legislators passed a law this year that makes body-camera videos available to the public, but limits broad requests for the footage and sets parameters on what is presumed to be private under the Public Records Act.

House Bill 2362 says that in order for law enforcement to use video and/or sound recordings, their agency must establish policies on body-worn cameras and the related city should adopt an ordinance authorizing their use.

The Pasco Police Department has in-car cameras that may capture audio from a microphone worn by the officer, but things can occur out of range of the video.

Those devices are adaptable to the body-worn versions, and Metzger said they can get a test camera to “make sure the policy fits and that it will be the right thing for our department.”

“There’s no cost right now until we can determine how this is going to work and all the other needs that we have,” he added.

But first, his department needs the city’s approval.

A public hearing on the issue is scheduled for 7 p.m. June 6 during the regular City Council meeting, 525 N. Third Ave. Council members plan to vote on the ordinance after the hearing.

Councilman Bob Hoffmann asked Metzger at the last meeting if body cameras are “the wave of the future” and every agency will have the technology in five years.

“We are going to do it,” the chief replied. “No other department in our area does it. Nationally it’s a hit-and-miss, depending on the department.”

The issue is securing the money to equip 71 sworn officers — 76 when fully staffed.

The department could opt to require that officers check out the device at the start of their shift and return it at the end, limiting the number that would have to be purchased, Sgt. Scott Warren told the Herald.

Metzger believes if the department had body cameras in some prior incidents, “it probably would have put people at more ease about what the officer was going through,” he said.

When Antonio Zambrano-Montes was killed in February 2015 near downtown Pasco, dashcam video showed him hurling rocks at officers before a shot was fired. However, it did not provide up-close footage or audio of the exchange, which included 17 shots fired by three officers.

Each body camera costs between $500 and $1,000 and backup servers to store the video footage are likely $5,000 to $10,000, Metzger said.

The city also may have to hire a full-time person to deal with public records requests from lawyers, citizens and news media, which also would involve redacting footage under the allowed exemptions.

Councilman Al Yenney asked what the average police officer on the street thinks of the technology.

Metzger said most of his officers are thinking of citizen protection first. In the case of a traffic stop, the motorist will be told they’re on video and everything they say is being recorded.

The chief noted an incident years ago in Texas where an officer was killed during a stop. He said if it weren’t for the VHS tape in the patrol car recording that stop, the killers never would have been found.

The body cameras will be a valuable tool in providing third-party information when a citizen makes a complaint against an officer, Metzger said. It also will allow him to show an officer what they did wrong when he has to discipline someone.

This story was originally published June 4, 2016 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Pasco police chief ready to equip officers with body cameras."