Finance Committee - 07/07/2021 Page 4
Kevin Rourke, Deputy Police Chief
Sure. First thing | just have some background information and then I'll go through the PowerPoint. Kevin
Rourke, Deputy Chief, Nashua Police. Last June spoke to the Mayor and a few Aldermen about getting body
cameras for the Police Department. For the past year the Mayor and | have worked through this project. We
thank you for your support and finding a solution to the problem because we know in the last year, many of
these body worn cameras companies, the price has risen dramatically.
Mayor Donchess
Now Deputy let me just interrupt for a second. The record should show that Alderwoman Kelly has arrived. OK.
Deputy Rourke
So when we started to deep dive this project, we looked into three separate companies for a 5-year contract
because that’s what most of these companies offer. When we started doing that and deep diving the project
we realized that Bodyworn by Utility has the best option. It has a lot more pros than the other companies. It is
also one of the only companies that provides a security blanket for the camera. Many of these companies —
this is the only company where the camera is basically sewn into the shirt so it can’t fall off and get knocked
off. What they do is they sew a pocket inside your shirt which unbuttons the shirt and the camera lays inside
that pocket. They cut a hole in the shirt and the camera is through the hole.
Every other company is the camera is attached to the uniform, I’m sure many of you have seen it. What
happens in that is a lot of times if you have seen the media recently, some of these cameras are knocked off if
you’re in a struggle with someone, if you’re in a fight and you're rolling on the ground, these cameras get
knocked off. Where you are going to spend all this money and the camera drops off it is kind of useless. So
that was one of the major point that we started to look towards Bodyworn Utility. So as we started to negotiate
with Bodyworn Utility we also noticed that they were the cheapest company of the three. Just other pros by
Bodyworn Utility when we started looking into this, there’s multiple activation features. You can activate the
camera, some of these other cameras are pushbutton so if an officers gets out of the vehicle and encounters a
situation, he’s got to remember every single time to hit the button to record.
This one has many features to it where it activates by a holster draw. For example, if you are out in the street
and an incident happens and you have got to draw your weapon, there’s a sensor on your holster that will
immediately activate the camera and it will actually go back 2 minutes; so you will have that 2 minutes prior to
pulling out your duty weapon. Lights and sirens in the vehicles, these are all pre-set up, lights and siren. If you
put your lights and sirens on the cameras are going to come on. Another features is officer down, safety issue.
If the officer is down for a certain amount of time, again this is pre-set, whatever the policy says and whatever
we decide with the company, if the officer is down for 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 7 seconds, that camera will
automatically turn on. It was also alert every other officer that is working, it will alert dispatch and it will give his
GPS -— his coordinates — to the exact location where he is. That was another plus.
Cruiser door — when the officer opens the cruiser door there’s a sensor in the door; it immediately turns on his
camera. So an officer gets in foot pursuit, it immediately activates the camera and also sends a GPS
coordinate back to dispatch and other surrounding officers that are working that evening or that day. Another
activation feature is a watch bracelet type item where you can either put it on — it looks like a watch or you can
put it on your belt, whatever the officer's preference is, it also activates and shuts the camera off. So many
good features with that. Other pros — full coverage support, 24/7, 365 days, you call them up there’s someone
there to answer the phone and help you. Full warranty — if anything is broken they will replace it for free.
These other cameras — there’s no docking station so it is a basically a Motorola G-7 Cell Phone that is the
camera. So you can plug it in, if the battery is getting low, if you worked the double shift, you are able to plug it
right into the cruiser.
Also at the end of your shift, you take it home, it’s just a charger. So there’s no docking stations which is a
problem before for 179 cameras we need multiple docking stations in the Department and there might not just
