BELCHERTOWN/GOSHEN — Police in Belchertown and Goshen are set to acquire body-worn cameras — and a storage system for the footage they produce — with the help of a state grant.
The Law Enforcement Body-Worn Camera Program awarded the Belchertown Police Department $58,705 to outfit each of the 24 officers with body cameras, while Goshen Police Department will use a $26,000 grant to purchase a four cameras, one per officer. The remainder of the grant funds the agencies’ preferred data storage system, with both towns choosing a local, in-network backup system.
Whately Police Department was also awarded $4,197 to expand its body camera program.
“Having a body cam program promotes transparency,” Belchertown Police Chief Kevin Pacunas said. “It brings trust between the community and police department.”
Pacunas said most, if not all, of the officers support employment of body cameras. The department acquired cruiser cameras in 2008, but these will be the department’s first body cameras. Both the cameras and the 144-terabyte server will be provided by Axis Communications.
The police department spent the last year working on a policy for body camera usage and storage of footage with the police union, Pacunas said. The draft of the policy requires cameras to be on during active patrol duties, investigating a call for service or while carrying out enforcement actions. Any interaction with a civilian must be recorded, from traffic stops to witness and victim testimonies.
Pacunas explained that officers will place their body cameras on a docking station after coming in from patrol, which triggers immediate upload to the server. Body camera footage is stored for a minimum of six months, with arrests, uses of force and felony investigations held for 37 months. Any instance involving death or sexual assault is held indefinitely.
Currently, the policy is still in the collective bargaining phase with the police union, but Pacunas hopes it will be finalized in the next 90 days. He predicts the program will roll out in the next three to six months.
Fred Bezio, who became police chief in Goshen earlier this year, said it was the first grant he applied for. He expects the grant money to cover four cameras, one for each officer, and three new computers with redundant network-attached storage (NAS). Data from the cameras takes up a lot of storage space, he noted, and the Police Department’s current computers are old.
Body cameras protect the officer and the public, Bezio noted.
“It’s an important part of the equipment the officers and I would carry,” he said.
Other department members in the town of approximately 1,000 residents are Sgt. William Bissell, Officer Eric Haberman, and Bezio’s wife, Officer Beth Bezio, who is also police chief in neighboring Ashfield. All the officers are part-time.
Bezio said the process involves the Select Board signing off on the grant, which is due Oct. 13, then the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS) will proved a start date for him to buy the equipment and get things rolling.
“I’ve already talked to some IT vendors,” he said.
Goshen’s body camera grant is one among more than $3.6 million in grants awarded to 52 departments in the third year of the state’s Law Enforcement Body-Worn Camera Program.
“These grants provide local police agencies with resources to implement technology that strengthens police-community relations while improving investigations and advancing the fundamental principles of transparency and accountability,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement.
Bezio said he was delighted to receive news of the grant.
“I am very very happy that this happened,” he said. “It helps us out, and it saves money for the taxpayers.”
Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com. James Pentland can be reached at jpentland@gazettenet.com.
