ANTHONY, Texas, October 15th, 2019 ─ The Anthony Police Department, located in Texas, currently has 15 body cameras deployed and Chief of Police Carlos Enriquez has shared their experiences with WOLFCOM body cameras and evidence management system. The department has had body cameras since 2012, long before it became a trend, which goes to show how much they value transparency between officers and citizens.
The decision to start a body camera program, according to the Chief, was preventive. “It was more preventive. We’ve had had body cameras since 2012 and we were looking for a better product,” said Chief Enriquez.
Carlos also went over why they decided to purchase WOLFCOM. “Overall, it [Halo Body Camera] served the purpose that we needed it. It was the product that had the life span as far as the battery goes and it wasn’t bulky like the ones we were carrying and the image quality was good,” said the Chief.
According to Chief Enriquez, officers weren’t too excited with the idea of implementing body cameras, but they quickly changed their minds after seeing how much it could benefit them. “At first, they did not like the idea, they were very against it. They were very hesitant when we first deployed a bodycam program in our organization. But, after a while, they found it was very beneficial to them because we reduced a lot of citizen complaints, a lot of officer error, and it was utilized as a training tool for a lot of officers,” said the Chief of Police.
The Chief claims to like WOLFCOM body cameras. “I love the video quality on the Halo. Overall, like I said, it’s not a bulky item and it’s very user-friendly,” said Carlos. And about the WEMS, Chief Enriquez claims “the evidence manager is outstanding because we can keep track and have the availability to be able to tag certain incidents and we’re able to retain it for a period of time that we set retention periods. So, overall, it’s a good tracking tool and it allows us to serve our community well and, both, the community and the officers know they are in good hands because WOLFCOM is very dependable.” He, then, proceeded to add “I love it. The best feature, I think, is the tech support. We call them up and you guys are there immediately.”
According to the Chief, these body cameras have “reduced citizen complaint rates by maybe 40%. It holds the officers accountable to their actions and then, again, it also helps them because they know when they do the right thing, it will be caught on video footage. We have citizens or individuals that have come in to complain and, during the course of it, they found that the officers were vindicated. It’s helped out tremendously.”