By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
As the Great Bend Police Department received approval from the city council earlier this month to purchase new body and vehicle cameras, Police Chief Steve Haulmark identified the positives of the camera availability over the years.
Great Bend Police has deployed in-car cameras since 2006 and body-worn cameras since 2014.
"When the cameras first came around, there was some pushback from officers," said Haulmark. "Once they saw how much they benefitted, particularly on complaints, it was huge. There was an incident recently if the public only saw a snippet initially shown, it didn't look great. Once they saw the whole picture that clarified things for a lot of people."
The incident Haulmark referred to is the Sept. 30 incident when a Barton County Sheriff’s Office deputy had a subject attempt to flee on foot following a traffic stop in Great Bend. The subject was tased and struck his face on the pavement.
The vehicle cameras can manually be turned on and are also activated once an officer turns on his or her lights and sirens. The body cameras are typically activated with any citizen contact.
Haulmark said police supervisors will review the recorded videos regularly to see what is happening on incident calls.
"Supervisors are keeping logs on the officers...you did this right, you could do this a little bit better," said Haulmark. "The Patrol Lieutenant will look at them from time to time. The Training Lieutenant will look at them. Occasionally, I'll ask to look at certain videos."
Great Bend’s $187,846 purchase of new cameras comes on a five-year contract with the Lenexa, Kansas based company Digital Ally.