The Montgomery County Council approved using more than $600,000 in federal stimulus funds to start putting cameras in county police cruisers — 10 years after the county said it would.
In 1999, the county agreed to set aside about $1 million to equip its cruisers with cameras. The agreement was in addition to a $2 million settlement with the family of Junious W. Roberts Jr. after he was accidentally shot in a Wheaton McDonald’s parking lot by a police officer.
Also part of the deal, which was partly brokered by the late, high-profile attorney Johnnie Cochran, the county agreed to increase the recruitment of minority officers and enroll its officers in sensitivity training.
But the cameras were put on hold when the
Fraternal Order of Police
Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said the cameras will be an important tool to help make strong cases against criminals and to enhance the department’s accountability.
“My experience with cameras in my old department in Fairfax was that it basically exonerated officers of a lot of complaints,” Manger said.
The federal money will go toward a secure wireless network and equipping about 100 cruisers with $4,500 digital cameras. The cameras have a shelf life of about six or seven years, according to county records.
Overall, the county has been given more than $1 million from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant to fund the cameras, public safety aides in the sheriff’s office, and investigators in the state’s attorney’s anti-gang office.
The department has been field testing two cruisers with cameras, and Manger said he hopes to have 100 patrol cars equipped with cameras by the end of the year.
He said equipping all the department’s 800 cruisers will require grant funding from a number of sources and take “multiple years.”
Council President Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville said the county should try to have cameras in all its cars as soon as possible.
Supporters said a recent perjury investigation into a county police officer highlights the need for the cameras. Officer Dina Hoffman testified in court 11 times that she saw a drunk man passed out in the driver’s seat of his car, according to published reports. But video footage from a nearby business clearly showed that the man was in the back seat of his car.
The case against the man was dismissed.
