NORTH OGDEN, Utah, February 10th, 2020 ─ North Ogden City Police Department currently has 21 issued WOLFCOM body cameras for 19 officers and Patrol Lieutenant Jeremy Hindes says these devices have helped them several times.
According to the Lieutenant, the decision to purchase body cameras back in 2014 “was more preventive. This was kind of a thing that was coming out and about. We actually had ours before Utah state made it a law. We actually take pride that we were one of the first ones right around here to issue all of our officers a camera. We were pretty proud of the fact that we issued them out before some of our surrounding agencies.”
The North Ogden Police Department uses Vision Body Cameras and Halo Body Cameras. Lieutenant Hindes says each of them has their strong points. “I certainly love the size of the Vision. It’s really easy to use. [About] the Halo, the guys that have those, they haven’t really complained about the size. Probably the biggest pro they have on that is the docking port versus the cable to plug it in. At first, they were like ‘it’s a little bigger’, but they kind of got over it,” said Jeremy.
When asked if these body cameras have helped them with any situation, the Lieutenant said “yes, several. Most of the time for us, we’re a smaller department, it’s more of a ‘your officer was rude to me’, that kind of stuff. It’s kinda helped out as far as, you know, when we started looking into allegations against our officers, we can review the footage. I’ve been in law enforcement for 27 years and I think the body camera is an awesome tool for law enforcement.”
It’s a known fact that small law enforcement agencies struggle with budget, and it wouldn’t be any different for the North Ogden P.D. “We’re a small department. From the Chief on down, we’re only 20 guys. And with a small department, a small city, comes a small budget, unfortunately,” said Jeremy. “Thankfully, we’ve been able to find a couple of grants that have helped us out. Because if it was strictly just a budget purpose, we’d probably been struggling a lot more,” he added.
Lieutenant Hindes said they have referred WOLFCOM body cameras to nearby departments. “I have [referred WOLFCOM] and we actually have talked to some of our neighboring agencies and showed them what we got versus what they have and even the Halos, they are a lot smaller than some of the big contraptions that the other guys are wearing.”