Some Edmonton police officers to wear body cameras next week for 6-month trial
Posted July 5, 2023 10:58 am.
Last Updated July 5, 2023 7:02 pm.
A handful of Edmonton police officers will begin wearing body cameras Monday as part of a six-month trial.
The Edmonton Police Service says 35 officers will wear cameras, which will be roughly the size of a deck of playing cards.
The officers taking part will be on the transit and community safety teams, the healthy streets operations centre community safety teams and the high-risk encampment teams.
Officers are expected to begin recording at the start of a public interaction. The cameras will be turned off at the end of that interaction or “when they determine that continuous recording is no longer serving its intended purpose,” EPS says in a news release.
“When we consider the variety of decisions that we ask our front line police members to make, this is another one of those decisions. I have every faith that they will make the decisions in relation to adherence to our policy,” said Derek McIntyre, Superintendent of the Crime Suppression and Investigations Division.
The footage will be uploaded at the end of an officer’s shift. It will be logged and submitted as part of disclosure to the Crown when charges are laid.
FILE – Police body camera. (Submitted by: Edmonton Police Service)
The move comes after the UCP government vowed in March to mandate body cameras for all law-enforcement officers.
The force says it will “trial various technologies to determine what capabilities best meet the organization’s needs.” EPS says it will then choose the most suitable vendor.
Edmonton police say body cameras can increase officer accountability, transparency, reduce the use of force and reduce “unfounded allegations of police misconduct.” They also say body cams could help improve evidence collection.
“The policy that we have in place is very prescriptive in relation to when to start recording. So any interaction they have with the public in a public space is an opportunity for them to record it. Our policy is quite prescriptive in relation to when they do use it,” said McIntyre.
“When we consider the variety of decisions that we ask our front line police members to make, this is another one of those decisions. I have every faith that they will make the decisions in relation to adherence to our policy. There are many situations where sensitive information or sensitive situation it doesn’t need to be recorded, either video or audio so they would have the discretion and the latitude to turn it off then.”
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For years advocates have been urging Edmonton police to adopt body cameras to improve accountability and transparency. That debate was sporadically reignited in high-profile interactions involving uses of force.
“People think it’s the panacea that’s going to correct everything, that’s going to fix please legitimacy, is going to bring the community back and it’s going to fix all these things and it’s not,” said Dan Jones, chair of Justice Studies at NorQuest College. “It’s actually only showing the officers viewpoint, not the individuals viewpoint.
The former police officer says cameras are not the only answer. He claims the they can also create more issues for officers.
“Sometimes the use of forces actually increase as a result of a body cameras because now you can see that this person ‘look how they’re acting so I’m going to use force faster’ rather than de-escalating because you don’t want to be in that situation where where you’re caught using force too quickly.”
Superintendent Jones says this won’t be perfect, adding that an officer could forget to hit record in a high-stress situation.
“And I think that double edge sword of it is ‘oh you’re going to use the camera for this but not for this?’ I’m challenged with that. It’s one of those things where it should almost either be always on, or you don’t have it at all.”
Edmonton police Chief Dale McFee has previously criticized the technology, telling CityNews in a 2021 interview the cameras don’t show an officer’s actions, but only who they’re interacting with.
It’s not the first time Edmonton police run a body cam trial. EPS says it tested the technology from October 2011 to December 2014 but found there were “concerns with the technology, data management and impact on complaints and use of force incidents.”
Last year EPS trialed in-car cameras with some police cruisers. The force says that trial is being put on hold as resources pivot to the body cam trial.
