Photo: AFP
Efforts continue to bring body cameras to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
We checked in for an update on the process which started last year and Sheriff Ric Bradshaw says it's moving along faster than he expected but that it will be easily the early part of next year before every deputy on the road gets fitted with a cam.
"Again, you can't just snap your fingers and make it happen. Plus, if we're going to spend this kind of money I want to make sure that we're getting the best product. That's it's going to do what we say it's going to do...that it's going to be state-of-the-art."
The Sheriff says he has 1,600 sworn employees and that's why the process takes so long. It's also part of the reason for the high cost.
"Well we figure that the whole thing before it's over with could be between $17 million and $20 million."
But once they're turned on, these cameras will provide more than just transparency.
"What we're asking for of these vendors is to give us real-time streaming so supervisors on the road, when we're going to something that's a big incident out there, that the supervisors are seeing what the deputies are seeing and if it's not going right take a different direction...preventative."
Bradshaw says they've narrowed down the search to three vendors and are starting to test the equipment from each one to make sure they meet PBSO's needs.
He says that process will take between six and ten weeks.