“It’s a time to start looking” for new cameras and “the possibility of saving some cost,” Kettering Police Chief Chip Protsman told city council last week.
Kettering Lt. Craig Moore told the Dayton Daily News that “the camera system we are looking at provides new technology for better video quality, audio quality, redaction, and overall usage.”
Kettering police started using the body cams in 2021 and the current ones “are reaching the end of their warranty and are outdated technology,” according to Moore.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has set aside $5 million more in grant funding for local law enforcement agencies for body camera equipment and associated expenses.
The use of police body cameras has been fiercely debated for several years. But in announcing the start of the third round of applications last month, DeWine said they “act as an impartial eye on the interactions between law enforcement and the public.”
Since the state’s program started in 2021, nearly $10 million has been awarded for body cameras and associated technology upgrades, according to DeWine’s office.
Local recipients in the first two rounds have included police departments in Butler Twp. ($63,438), Centerville ($115,000), Miamisburg ($52,154), New Lebanon ($10,982), Riverside ($38,785), and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office ($76,240), Ohio records show.
The largest single funding award last year went to Hamilton County’s Springfield Twp. Police Department ($244,838).
The state has not indicated when a decision on funding will be made, Moore said. Previous Ohio body camera grant awards have been announced in December and January, according to state records.
In 2020, Kettering’s council approved $236,030 to buy 90 cameras from WatchGuard, city records show. The Dallas-based business was preferred over other vendors, in part, because it also supplied the KPD’s in-car camera system, officials said then.
The department has 86 budgeted, sworn positions, 67 of which are patrol officers, according to its 2022 annual report.
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