The Clark County Council unanimously approved body-worn cameras for the sheriff’s office at its regular meeting Wednesday.
The move will allow county manager Kathleen Otto to sign a five-year contract with Axon Enterprises, a major provider of body-worn cameras to law enforcement agencies across the country. The deal also would allow the Clark County Sheriff’s Office to buy vehicle cameras and new Taser weapons.
A Clark County staff report estimated the program’s cost around $1 million per year, and a total cost of around $5.5 million.
Clark County sheriff’s deputies should begin receiving body cameras this summer similar to the one shown in this March 8, 2021 file photo of Washington County Sheriffs Deputy Jarrod McCreary wearing a new body camera system in Hillsboro, Oregon.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB
Sheriff’s deputies should begin receiving the body cameras this summer. The sheriff’s office plans to roll out the cameras with patrol staff by the summer or fall. It will later assign cameras to detectives and other specialty policing units, as well as administrators.
Patrol vehicles should be equipped with cameras in early 2024, according to a written statement from the county.
Clark County has faced intense scrutiny in recent years for a number of high-profile fatal shootings. The county is facing wrongful death lawsuits for the 2020 killing of Kevin Peterson Jr., 17, and the 2021 killing of Jenoah Donald, 30. A sheriff’s deputy also shot and killed a Vancouver police officer while pursuing a robbery suspect in 2022.
Each of those killings have led to calls for more police accountability, specifically around body cameras and transparency around the use of deadly force by sheriff’s deputies.
In Vancouver, officers for the city police department have already had a fatal shooting since implementing their body-worn camera program this year. That footage helped verify that the person who was killed had pointed a gun at police before the shooting.