Fort Worth police are investing in new technology to give a clearer picture of what happens on every call they respond to. It's part of a broader effort to increase transparency and improve the relationship between police and the public.
The technology is basically a series of triggers that use a Bluetooth signal to automatically turn on any police body cameras in the area. The idea is to take the responsibility away from the officers so they don't have to remember to push the record button in a potentially life-or-death situation.
"We want to be proactive, we want to be ahead of the curve, employ different technologies that will give us the chance to be transparent with our community," said Fort Worth Police Assistant Chief Ed Kraus.
The department is upgrading all squad cars so that whenever an established trigger happens, like the car's sirens turning on, the car's dash camera and every police body camera within at least 30 feet, will start recording.
"They are the largest in the United States in a full deployment of this type of level," said former Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead, who helped develop the auto-record features and now works for Axon, the company that makes the technology.
"There is no way, and no amount of training is going to retrain the human mind to activate technology before you defend your life," Halstead said, explaining the need for an auto-record function in a high-stress situation.
Now, Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald wants to take it a step further, so that whenever an officer takes his or her gun or Taser out of its holster, another trigger would turn the cameras on.
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Fitzgerald made the announcement Monday night at a meeting of the city's new Race and Culture Task Force. It's part of a larger effort to build trust and transparency with the community. If they can't walk in an officer's shoes, at least they can see what an officer sees.
"It will help protect the officer, the department, and the community," Kraus said.
Command staff expects to have the first squad cars equipped with this technology on the streets by the end of the year, with plans to move forward with the holster equipment early next year.
