There will be more delays before you will see North Bay Police wear body-worn cameras.
Scott Tod, the Chief with the North Bay Police Service, suggested this summer that a body-worn camera pilot project may get its start in late 2021, but now that has been pushed back into early to mid 2022.
"We are working with Axon Canada and the Ministry of the Solicitor General in regards to pushing our body-worn video and our digital evidence management package through," Tod told the media recently.
"Many of the police services are doing the same thing at the same time. Most police services are a little bit more advanced in regards to the digital evidence management side. We are working closely with Axon to develop what the body-worn camera project rollout will look like. We will test the cameras for a period of time, prepare a report for the board and hopefully early spring next year we will have a project where we are rolling out the cameras."
Tod says the goal would be for all the patrol officers working to be equipped with them.
"Whether that goes further beyond that and into our crime section or our community response officers and other units, that will still be determined," said Tod.
He adds that Guelph recently released a report from their services that Tod hopes will help guide the North Bay Police Service.
See related: Police body worn cameras expected before the end of 2021
Regardless of the timeline, Tod is looking forward to having the technology.
"First of all, it captures real-time evidence while it is occurring it also provides officer interaction with the public," he said.
"It also gives the public the opportunity to understand they are being videoed at the same time and provide further evidence to us while they are speaking with us. It will assist us with public complaints against police officers, it will assist us with investigative matters going forward and it provides a record of what the officers are doing while on duty in servicing the public of North Bay which is I think what people would like to see."
Storing the information is a challenge and Tod says one that comes with a big cost. Tod hopes that learning from Police partners will give them a better idea of how to properly store that important evidence and information.
