The Dalton, Massachusetts police department rolled out a camera program for its officers and cruisers this month. Other Berkshire County municipalities like Great Barrington and Pittsfield have also implemented their own camera programs over the past few months. Dalton, a community of around 6,300, sits just east of county seat Pittsfield. Chief Deanna Strout has been a member of the department for 25 years, and took over as chief in 2021. She tells WAMC that the cameras were funded by securing a grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.
STROUT: We have about 15 police officers in the town of Dalton. All officers have a camera. All of our patrol cruisers are equipped with what's called a Rocket Cam, which is a cruiser camera, covers both the rear and the front of the cruiser.
WAMC: Now, what was this process like to go about getting the program in place? When did the effort first begin, and tell us a little bit about the conversations that happened to get us to this point of implementation?
[The Executive Office of Public Safety and Security] offered a grant through the state for funding for a body cam program, and my executive assistant and I applied for the grant. We submitted all the paperwork and we are actually awarded the sixth highest grant in Massachusetts for the program.
And how large the grant is that?
About $129,000.
Now, what is your goal for the program? What are you hoping of this brings to policing in Dalton?
Our goal, obviously, is to have- We have a, we're very fortunate. We have a great relationship with our community, and also with our select board and our town manager. So, we're very fortunate in that. But we like the idea of protecting both our community members and our officers so that there's just a transparent view of what happens. So, when someone has a question, we can answer it with real confidence on what the situation was.
What was the training like that went into getting the program in place?
So, we had- Utility came out. They've done a couple, they did a couple demonstrations. We tested a couple of different vendors, we did end up going with Utility, body worn by Utility, based on, their technology was just far greater. So, they came out and they did training and they installed the cameras in the cruisers. The training honestly, was a little bit, it was a little tough. It was a lot of information in only, like, about three to four hours. So, it was just a lot of learning. You know, essentially, the body worn camera is actually like a cell phone, and you classify your videos and you have to, they upload the videos as soon as you hit the Wi-Fi. So, which is a nice thing, because we don't have to come in and dock the camera and take time away from being out on patrol. Because as soon as you get in the Wi-Fi, it uploads your video to the system. The other thing that I really love about this system is that all officers are equipped with a holster sensor. So, if they were to draw their firearm, their camera clicks on automatically. When they turn their blue lights on in the cruiser, the cruiser cams go on automatically. So, there's a lot of, a lot less room for operator error, if you will. And our dispatch is going to be equipped with the system as well. So, when they enter a call, so when they take a call, and they enter it into the software to dispatch the officers, and like our [computer-aided dispatch] system, as soon as we get within 100 feet, because it's all GPS monitored, within 100 feet of that call, the officers camera will automatically click on so they don't have to worry about turning the camera on or off. You know, they have to turn it off when they're clear, but, turning the camera on.
Now, I'm interested- In Pittsfield, there was some pushback from police unions during their effort to roll out a body camera program. What was it like for your department? What was there any pushback along the way?
So, we had no pushback. We sat down with supervisors and union reps and we actually did the policy all together. So, we took the state policy, and we made a couple of little tweaks that we thought worked best for our department. And everyone in the union reviewed it and we actually just had some sit down conversations about what they liked, what they may not have liked so much, which really wasn't anything. Our union was really- They were really cooperative. They wanted this program. They did ask the town for a stipend, which they did receive. And you know, I've had a few questions about that. And my answer is always, the amount of additional work that they have with this program, besides just learning the equipment, but coming in, reviewing their footage to write the reports as accurately as they can and to actually classify each video, because they have to come in and make sure all the videos are classified. So, there's a lot more work that they didn't used to have to do. So, I fully support them receiving additional compensation for doing this, although there was no pushback from them. They were all very enthusiastic about it.
If you had to characterize those tweaks from the state policy to fit Dalton, how would you describe them?
So right now, we don't do random audits on our officers. A lot of policy throughout the state do random checks to make sure officers are handling calls appropriately. Specifically, what's different in our policy is we do, anytime there's a use of force incident, we would automatically review the video to make sure the officers were in compliance with policy. They also, every time there's use of force incident, they have to fill out paperwork and report it to the supervisor and the supervisor would review reports. Well, now they're going to review reports and all the body cam footage from everyone on scene. So, if there's the use of force, if there's a complaint, we will review all body cam footage. If there's evidence gathering- So, say we're going to be, we had an arrest, we would review everything to make sure everything was done properly in that circumstance as well. And then public information. The public information officers would review the footage as well. So, there's a lot of reviews going on, just not the random reviews right now.