DA Teams with Bellefonte to Provide Body Cameras for Police Officers

Come April, Bellefonte Borough police officers will be equipped with body cameras. The units were approved by borough council on Monday night.

Funding for the cameras was partially provided by the county district attorney’s office. District Attorney Bernie Cantorna and the borough teamed up back in September in an effort to provide the cameras to the last municipal police department in Centre County without them.

Over the past two and a half years, Ferguson Township, Patton Township, State College and Spring Township police departments all have added the devices. Penn State police do not currently use body cameras. Pennsylvania State Police conducted a pilot for use of body cameras in 2018 it has not implemented them at a statewide level. Centre County Correctional Facility officers began using them in 2019 and Centre County approved the purchase of body cameras for the sheriff’s office in December.

For Bellefonte Police Chief Shawn Weaver, the technology will be an important new tool.

“Body cameras are important because it creates transparency and accountability and increases the integrity of our criminal justice system,” said Weaver.

He added later, “A picture tells a thousand words. A picture doesn’t lie.”

After the cameras were approved by the council, a representative from the DA’s office presented the borough with a check for $15,000 to cover one-half of the purchase of the cameras. The money came from drug forfeiture proceeds. Cantorna said the cameras are an important tool for police, the public and his office.

“Every day our police respond to incidents where individuals are in crisis, at physical risk of harm and situations where action needs to be taken to protect the public,” said Cantorna. “When reviewing these incidents and preparing to take cases to court, body cameras provide important proof on what did or did not occur.”

Chief Weaver said that funding provided by the district attorney was “huge.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to do it without it in a borough that sometimes struggles to make ends meet,” said Weaver. The most expensive aspect of the technology is the storage of the data obtained from the cameras.

Weaver said there will be a learning curve for his department when it comes to the cameras, but they will provide an immediate benefit for officers and the public.

“We are looking forward to using this tool,” said Weaver. He said the cameras can help provide physical evidence, capture a crime scene and be used as training resources in the future. Much like car cameras, he said body cameras can take perception out of an incident.

He said there have been incidents where a citizen may have made a complaint about an officer in the past and they replayed the car video, and the “citizen realized that the officer was being very professional.”

Weaver said the cameras may also help the public feel a little higher comfort level, knowing that their interactions with the police are being recorded. He expects to have the cameras up and running by April 1.