Bibb County Sheriff’s Office months away from using body cams

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Bibb County’s sheriff says his deputies are a few months away from using body cameras while they’re on patrol. 

As more videos of officers across the country show them, at times overstepping their boundaries, Sheriff David Davis is aware the need is now. 

“Now, body camera or not, you need to figure that everything that you do is being videoed by someone,” Davis says. 

The sheriff’s office is one of dozens of law enforcement agencies across the country cracking down on officers behaving badly. A deputy was arrested in July, accused of kicking a handcuffed suspect in the chest while he was on the ground.

Yet another reason Davis wants to implement body cameras, but he says it isn’t an instant process. 

“We’re going to get them at the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, but we’ve got to get them right,” Davis says. 

He and others at the sheriff’s office are part of a body camera committee and they’re creating protocol for officers when they use the cams. 

“I’d love to have had body cameras on my deputies six months ago, but I rather do this prep work now,” Davis says.

“So that when we do get them, it’s a seamless phasing in so the deputies know when they’re expected to wear them, when they’re expected to have them turned on, where they’re going to download, and how we’re going to store the data,” he continued. 

Deputies say they’re actually looking forward to using them. 

“The reason I say that it can help law enforcement is the fact that it can help us cover our tracks when it comes to citizen encounters and dealing with the public,” Deputy Malcolm Bryant says while driving on patrol. 

Davis says for the first time, money isn’t isn’t a problem. There is more $100,000 set aside in the sheriff’s office’s budget, along with seized money from illegal gambling busts that will pay for the cameras. The hold up is picking the right vendor. 

“Half the time when we go on these calls, a majority of these people have their cell phones out anyways. So I think it will be a plus. It’ll be a positive thing,” Bryant says. 

“I have made the commitment that we are going to have body cameras. We will have body cameras hopefully by the end of the year. We’re going to have them out, phasing them in,” Davis says. 

Deputies say cameras or not, you should always do your job with integrity. 

“No, doesn’t matter who’s watching. You should be doing the same thing every call, every day. Just having a camera on you shouldn’t affect anything. It should be more so supplemental to whatever it is that you stated in your incident report or your narrative,” says Bryant. 

Sheriff Davis agrees and wants a better relationship between law enforcement and the community. 

“I encourage people to catch doing something right. Document us doing things right and get some balance to it,” he says. 

Sheriff Davis says he doesn’t think all of his deputies will be uniformed with body cameras by the end of 2015. He wants to start by putting the cameras on traffic and special response officers first, then move onto the rest of uniform patrol.