The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) announced on Wednesday (July 5) morning that select officers will begin wearing body cameras next week.
This is part of a six-month trial that will outfit about 35 officers working with Transit and Community Safety Teams, the Healthy Streets Operations Centre Community Safety Teams, and the High-Risk encampment Teams with body cameras.
These teams were specifically chosen due to the variety of police interactions that are associated with officers in those roles.
“We’ve heard from many of our members that they are looking forward to wearing cameras and are hopeful that it will improve officer safety by affecting the behavior of the individuals they interact with and subsequently deescalating situations,” says Superintendent Derek McIntyre with the EPS Crime Suppression and Investigations Division.
“Video can be a helpful and beneficial tool for all parties in police interactions and will hopefully also assist investigators by improving evidence collection, documentation, early case resolution and successful prosecution.”
This is the second body camera trial that the EPS has gone through with the first taking place between October 2011 and December 2014. Several concerns were brought up after that trial concerning the technology, something that should not be as much as an issue now.
EPS says that the cameras will be visible on front of the officer's uniform.
"The cameras are approximately the size of a deck of playing cards and officers will begin recording when they start a public interaction such as when they start investigating an individual; or when they are asking a person questions for the purpose of collecting their information," said the EPS in a release.
"While not legally required to do so, officers will do their best to advise citizens when they are being recorded."
The camera will only be turned off once an interaction is done or if it is determined that continuous recording is no longer needed.
The hope is that this project will eventually lead to all officers wearing cameras after the Alberta government mandated the use of body cameras back in March.