College Station Police Department now has 14 new body cameras in service following the passing of the Sept. 23 city council budget proposal.
“The program began initially because our Northgate officers on bicycles who are involved in incidents every night were at an initial disadvantage because they didn’t have cameras,” said Lt. Chris Perkins of CSPD. “We really wanted to catch footage and different evidence so we started to evaluate systems around a year ago.”
Perkins said the cameras provide an extra safety net that will protect both officers and residents. Currently the cameras are only present on motorcycle and bicycle officers because they are the ones who usually have the most interaction with residents.
“Our goal is to implement the cameras into the entire department,” Perkins said. “It’s an expensive venture but we are hoping to get something together relatively soon. We are hoping that as soon as we can get them out to all the officers, we will. It’s expensive to say the least, but if we can afford it as a city then we would like to get all the officers equipped with it.”
Perkins said there is no clear time frame for when the program will become department wide but CSPD continues to evaluate the system to better protect both CSPD officers and College Station residents.