Eye on you: Most Columbia Falls police using body cams now
If you meet a Columbia Falls police officer in uniform, chances are your conversation and actions are being recorded by a body camera.
The force started using cameras in a limited manner about four years ago, said Police Chief Dave Perry, when officers experimented with inexpensive $49 cameras. But today, officers use $400 cameras made by Taser. The cameras are made to take abuse and work well in low light situations, Perry said.
The camera, in essence, is always on, but when an officer turns on the record function, it records the previous two minutes prior to the button being turned on.
In criminal and other cases, the body cam footage is burned to a CD and is used as evidence in the case, if need be, Perry said.
Officers aren’t required to wear the cameras, but most voluntarily do so, Perry said. Perry, who is usually in plain clothes, doesn’t wear one, for example, but he rarely goes on patrols, either.
Perry said anytime someone interacts with an officer they should assume they’re being recorded. When a person is booked on a charge, for example, there are nine cameras recording the room, he noted.
If a person is pulled over by police, as soon as the lights are turned on by the officer, a camera begins recording the stop, Perry noted. He claimed the body cameras are useful in arrests because they record both video and sound.
“It’s very credible evidence,” he said. “It (the footage) tells the truth. If an officer did something wrong, we need to correct the behavior.”
Perry said that if police that stopped Stan Downen back in 2012 had been wearing body cams, it may have ended differently. Downen, 77, a Korean War veteran suffering from Alzheimer’s, had walked away from the Montana Veterans Home after staying one night. Vets Home staff were unable to stop him as he proceeded north up Veterans Drive to the nearby baseball fields.
The two Columbia Falls police officers who responded reported that Downen would not cooperate and threatened to throw a rock he was holding at them. One officer deployed his Taser, and Downen injured himself when he fell to the ground.
Downen was transported by ambulance to Kalispell Regional Medical Center. He died 23 days later, on June 24, 2012. Downen’s family sued and the city settled the case out of court.
Perry said if police had body cams, they may have been exonerated.
But there are some downfalls to using cameras, Perry noted. Witnesses may be reluctant to talk to police because they’re being recorded. People may also not let police willingly in their homes because of the fear of the interior of their homes being recorded.