Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police officer Randy Bishop checks the view offered by a new car-mounted video camera.

Video camera serves as impartial eyewitness

Police departments in pilot project

By Shari Kaplan

Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police officers now have one more gadget added to the arsenal of crime-fighting apparatus inside their patrol cars--or at least inside one of them.

During each patrol shift, one officer or sergeant will get to drive a car sporting a small onboard video camera that is mounted near the rearview mirror and faces forward. Los Gatos joins 21 other Bay Area cities whose law enforcement departments each have a $5,000 video camera in one of their patrol cars.

The cameras are part of a pilot program launched in fall 1997 by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) Pooled Liability Assurance Network (PLAN) Corporation. This is the first self-insurance pool in the nation with a program of this type. Among its uses is to help prevent and defend ABAG PLAN members against unfounded general-liability claims brought against police officers for misconduct, wrongful arrests or other offenses.

Police departments can use videotapes obtained via the car-mounted cameras to show rookie officers if they need to improve their protocol. The tapes can also become evidence against suspects during traffic stops, searches, arrests, police chases and other types of incidents.

"It's used sort of like an eyewitness--instead of someone recording data in their brain, it's recorded on video," explains LGPD Sgt. Mike Yorks. "With DUI stops and sobriety tests, that could very well be used by an attorney to determine the client's condition."

"It's also useful if there's a discrepancy between what an officer says and what a citizen says. [A video camera] proves and disproves a lot of things," Yorks adds, explaining that as liability claims loom larger and larger, it's good to have an unbiased "witness" such as a camera to record the facts.

All LGPD officers have now received training on the use and care of the cameras, according to Yorks. The sergeant in charge of each shift may drive the car with the camera or may assign it to one of the officers.

Over the next two years, the ABAG PLAN will evaluate whether the cameras help reduce insurance claims against the 22 cities with participating law enforcement departments. If so, it will consider adding cameras to all the departments' patrol cars, which could cost more than $2 million. In 1994, Campbell became the first among Northern California's cities and towns to install video cameras in all of its patrol cars.

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