Everett Police To Equip All Patrol Officers With Body Worn Cameras By End Of Year

Wednesday night the City Council in Everett, Washington unanimously approved receipt of a Department of Justice grant for $300,000.00 to equip all Everett Police patrol officers with body worn cameras. The grant will assist with the start up cost leaving the City’s portion at about $55,000.00 for this year.

According to Everett Police Spokesman Aaron Snell, years 2-5 expenses are anticipated to be approximately $270K (each year) for software, licensing, cloud storage and equipment. There are no additional staff requests to manage public disclosure or prosecutor’s office workload at this time, but Chief Templeman has indicated during his prior Council briefing that this is something the department will closely monitor.

Snell says the goal is to equip all of the patrol officers with the body-worn cameras by the end of this year but approvals and contracting details may push that back a bit. The Everett Police Department has been conducting a trial program with ten cameras earlier this year and the results of that trial led the effort to move ahead with equipping all patrol officers with body worn cameras.

Here’s what Everett Police Chief Dan Templeman had to say about the cameras during the trial period. “While the cost of these cameras is high, we believe that the benefit of transparency and mitigation of injuries and liability make the expenses worth the investment.”