Sheriff’s Office seeks new car, body cameras, mobile computers

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County deputies currently wear body cameras to record their on-duty interactions with people, but the Sheriff’s Office would like to supplement those cameras with additional video gear mounted in the patrol vehicles.

The department would also like mobile data terminals — essentially car-mounted laptop computers or tablets with keypads — to increase deputies’ efficiency in the field.

Sgt. Travis Bartz of the Sheriff’s Office presented the proposal to the Floyd County Board of Supervisors at the board’s planning session Monday morning.

He presented a wide range of options to purchase the equipment, including price ranges for different models of the cameras and computers, as well as different schedules that could be used to gradually purchase the equipment over a number of years.

If all of the equipment the department is requesting is purchased at once, the total price range would be between $112,000 and $143,000. The models that the department is recommending come with a price tag of $134,130.

The supervisors took no action on the request Monday. They are in the middle of budgeting for the upcoming 2018-19 fiscal year that will begin July 1.

The in-car cameras that the department would like to purchase would also require purchasing new body cams, Bartz said.

“It’s a little bit bigger, a little bit pricier, but they work in tandem with the in-car camera,” he said.

“Let’s say you turn on your (emergency) lights. Your in-car camera would come on, your body camera would come on. You get outside the vehicle and it’s recording your body camera and your vehicle.

“When you play those videos back it will sync the videos so you are watching two videos with one audio,” he said.

If a deputy is outside the vehicle and switches his body cam on, the camera inside the vehicle will also start recording. And any other deputies who arrives on the scene would also have their cameras switched on automatically.

The model recommended can record exterior as well as interior views, which is especially important when transporting a prisoner, Bartz said.

The sergeant said 95 percent of the law enforcement agencies in the state have in-car video cameras, and it is considered standard equipment.

Fewer agencies have mobile computers, but he said he could make a case for why they would be useful in Floyd County.

Bartz said the mobile data terminals would make the deputies more efficient because currently they have to write up an accident report or a citation by hand while at the scene, then go back to the office and type everything in and file it.

With the in-car computer they would be able to type in reports and citations directly, file them from the field and print out citations or accident reports right there.

The Sheriff’s Office has 550 square miles to patrol, and the in-car computers would help deputies spend more time out in the county instead of behind a desk, Bartz said.

In addition they could scan driver’s licenses, look up license plate information and arrest reports, as well as tap into the sheriff’s department’s information such as dispatch logs, incident reports and calls for service.

The computers would stamp reports with GPS location information, as well as provide instant messaging and email communications in the patrol vehicle.

The Charles City Police Department, Iowa State Patrol and surrounding counties use mobile terminals, he said.

The total amount of equipment requested is 13 body cams for deputies, 13 in-car cameras for 12 patrol vehicles and the jail transport vehicle, computer mounting hardware for 10 vehicles and five laptop/keyboards.

Bartz said the mobile terminals would be able to be used in most of the vehicles, but would not be kept in the vehicles. They would be picked up in the sheriff’s office by deputies before they start their shift and slipped into their brackets.