INNISFAIL – By spring, every Innisfail RCMP member patrolling local streets and rural areas will look a little different.
Each one will be wearing a new body-worn camera.
And all Mounties working out of the Innisfail RCMP detachment will have one sooner rather than later.
Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Ian Ihme told the Albertan that Innisfail’s 18-member RCMP detachment is scheduled to have its body-worn camera roll out in April of this year, instead of waiting as long as November.
“It is my understanding that once an attachment rolls out, they'll roll out the entire detachment,” said Ihme.
That is 18 new high-tech, body-worn cameras for each member of the RCMP detachment, including Ihme.
“Every officer will have an individual camera that's assigned to them, and they're to wear it during their shift, and then at the end of their shift we have docking stations where the camera gets docked and auto downloads up to a cloud server,” said Ihme.
Last Nov. 14 the RCMP announced a national deployment of body-worn cameras.
The announcement said starting Nov. 18 frontline RCMP officers at select detachments across Canada will start to wear body-worn cameras, with captured audio and video uploaded and maintained on a secure digital evidence management system.
The goal was to have 90 per cent of frontline members using body-worn cameras with full deployment completed by the next 12 to 18 months.
There was a follow-up media release on Dec. 5 that had a list of 13 Alberta communities that already had the cameras and another list of 11 that would get them this month.
Innisfail was not on either list.
However, Ihme sent out an email to his district office on Jan. 3 and there was confirmation the local detachment will be getting the body-worn cameras earlier than expected.
And the Innisfail detachment commander is more than content, saying he is “100 per cent in favour” of the new cameras.
“The public expects accountability out of the police, right?, which is something I believe in for sure,” said Ihme. “And then on top of that it records a lot of best evidence that we can use in in our court cases.
“And it also keeps other people to account as well too,” he added, noting he often receives public complaints from the community, including those against police officers, with many not being made in good faith. “Having the body cam footage will be an easy way to determine if the person saying the complaint is accurate, or maybe less accurate, or somewhere in between?
“I’m hoping on that front it'll definitely assist with things but really it's all about transparency being the main issue, right?”
As for the cost for the new body-worn cameras, Ihme said each one will have a $3,000 price tag for each of the Innisfail detachment’s 18 members.
“The whole thing is a leased package and it includes the camera, the training, the storage, the downloading, all that kind of stuff,” said Ihme.
And where is the money coming from to pay a total annual leasing cost of $54,000?
Policing costs in Innisfail is a three-way split between the federal government, the province and the town.
And Ihme believes it will be the same arrangement for the new cameras.
“There has been quite a bit of money set aside by the feds but then some of the cost goes to each contract holder which I believe is that $3,000,” said Ihme. “For us, 10 of our positions are paid by the town, so those costs would go to them. The other positions are provincial so those ones would go to the provincial budget.”
