With the Metro Council having signed off at its meeting Wednesday evening on a pilot program to outfit 100 Baton Rouge police officers outfitted with body cameras, the department is now aiming to have officers equipped with them in November, says spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McNeely.
“First we have to install the servers that will download the videos from the body cameras,” which should happen in the first week of October, McNeely says. “After they’re installed we’ll issue the cameras to 100 officers in the first district. We’re shooting for November, because it’s quite a process for them to come in and install the servers and get everything ready.”
The Metro Council approved a trial program for 100 cameras after narrowly defeating in June a measure calling for the implementation of the technology for the full police force by December 2016. Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle has been working on getting the cameras in use by the department since last year, and says it is still her goal to see full implementation on the force.
“I have mixed emotions about it,” she says, “but I’m happy that we’re moving forward in the right direction. I still believe it should have been approved for the entire city of Baton Rouge. At this point it’s my intention to move forward with this pilot program and look for opportunities to add another district.”
Along with approving the pilot program, the council on Wednesday formed a committee to oversee the pilot program and report back to the council as to how it’s being implemented and how effective it is. Marcelle will chair the committee, while council members Tara Wicker and Buddy Amoroso will also be involved. Other members include representatives from the mayor’s office, police department, district attorney’s office, parish attorney’s office and city prosecutor, among others. Citizen representatives will be Tommy Milazzo and Cleve Dunn Jr. Bishop Christopher Huddleston is the faith-based community representative.
“Our very first meeting will be held on September 30,” Marcelle says. “The committee is going to vet how the process works, the viability of the cameras, the community reaction and whether or not complaints go down.”
Also Wednesday, the Metro Council approved executing a roughly $1 million grant application for an updated master plan for the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, and OK’d a $922,171 contract to Mansfield, Texas-based airport consulting firm Kutchins & Groh to conduct the master plan. The airport’s master plan was last updated in 2007.
—Steve Sanoski
