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Sheriff Williams: All JSO officers will wear body cameras in three years

By Kevin Clark and Action News Jax
By Kevin Clark and Action News Jax
Sheriff Mike Williams gave an update about JSO’s officer body camera program Thursday evening, saying he expects all officers under the rank of Lieutenant to wear body cameras within the next three years.
“We’re still keeping the three-year window, but we may finish before that,” said Williams.
JSO began a pilot program for body cameras last year. An Action News Jax investigation from earlier this week found that JSO officers haven’t worn the cameras since the third and final testing phase ended in May.
As part of the pilot program, officers tested cameras from three different vendors. Each trial ran for three months, and 30 officers would wear the cameras at a time.
Sheriff Williams expects JSO to decide on a vendor and purchase the cameras in the next couple of months—ahead of an October rollout.
When asked whether the agency had chosen a vendor, Sheriff Williams said, “At this point, I don’t believe that we’re there.”
He told us one of the vendors didn’t make it through its testing period because it was a mismatch with JSO’s technology.
“We don’t want to buy a product that we’re going to have problems with off the shelf,” said Williams, “And we certainly are taking our time with the process to make sure that when we roll this program out, we don’t have to pull it back in.”
The agency plans to purchase about 200 cameras initially.

Cox Media Group

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