Pictured: Newport police have started using body cams PHOTO CREDIT: Lucas Masiello | Staff Photographer
On Feb. 10 the University of Rhode Island’s Police Department got a shipment of Axon body cameras for every officer to wear while on duty.
The University purchased these cameras after applying for a Department of Justice grant given out by the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety for body-worn cameras specifically.
According to Michael Jagoda, director of public safety and chief of police at URI, the University getting this equipment has been discussed since 2020.
“I think we have to look at, you know, incidents back in 2020,” Jagoda said. “We made a commitment here about reviewing, you know, our policies or procedures, along with having the body-worn cameras, which was the subject of a national discussion. We talked about it as a department and we also put that out to our community members and got feedback in terms of positive support for the police department, having body-worn cameras.”
Jagoda said that getting these cameras was a process. Not only did the department need to apply for the grant, but they also needed to put together different policies about the cameras, as well as coordinate training and testing different manufacturing brands of the cameras.
In addition, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office has certain policies surrounding body cameras and how they should promote transparency among law enforcement.
After testing wearing the cameras, the department chose Axon and will set up training through that company.
“There’s extensive training in terms of reviewing the Attorney General’s policies making sure that we’re doing everything, you know, we’re adhering to those procedures,” Jagoda said. “We also have our IT people that come in and work with Axon’s IT people so that everything is secure. We have to go through our IT security team and make sure that any kind of information that gets downloaded is secure. It’s encrypted. It can’t be hacked into — different things like that.”
According to Jagoda, the police department’s goal is to have the training done by May, and all cameras deployed by commencement.
Additionally, Jagoda said URI is the only university in Rhode Island that is going to have body cameras for police officers.
Ashley Cruz, a third-year student majoring in communicative disorders said that she does not think the body cameras will make as large a difference on campus as they would for police officers “outside in the world.”
“I think this could be a good thing looking at it from a person who is from a disadvantaged background,” Cruz said. “This allows access in a way to show what really is happening and how they are getting treated. But it sucks in a way because it does violate privacy and cops who let you go after a warning.”
Regardless of the opinions of students, faculty and staff, Jagoda has a positive outlook on the impact he expects the cameras to have.
“It gets pretty costly in terms of the initial costs of buying the hardware is costly, and then down the line, it gets a little bit more cost efficient in terms of all we’re paying for,” Jagoda said.