Police leaders say body, car cameras are helping solve crimes 

A year and a half after Salem police officers began wearing body cameras, department leaders say the program is making it easier for police to solve crimes and reducing complaints against officers.

The program has been rolling out gradually since a February 2023 launch.

Deputy Chief Brandon Ditto said officers were trained and equipped with body-worn cameras first while the department worked on setting up the vehicle-mounted cameras. That took all of 2023 and part of 2024 to complete. 

Ditto said about three months ago the police department completed the final stages of the body-worn and in-car camera programs, which included getting software configured correctly.

“It was something we had been clamoring for for a number of years and it is nice to have it fully implemented. Have a system that is functional. Have officers that are trained to use it,” Ditto said. “We can use it for all types of investigations, from criminal to administrative. It is so incredibly helpful.”

Chief Trevor Womack told city councilors on July 22 that the program has led to a 62% drop in formal complaints which he said, prior to the camera systems being in place, were a cumbersome drag on police resources. 

The department has captured footage and audio of 84,000 incidents using its new camera systems since the program’s start. He said the department expects those numbers to increase now that the in-car camera systems are now in place. 

Womack told the council all police officers are trained to use and equipped with a body camera. Officers wear cameras in settings where they interact with the public, such as patrolling or investigating crimes. 

Around 60 Salem police vehicles are outfitted with both an outward facing camera, and a camera focused on the back cabin of the police car.

The police department entered into a five-year contract with Chicago-based Motorola Solutions for the cameras, at a cost of about $400,000 a year. 

The program brings Salem police on par with other departments across the country. According to the National Institute of Justice, about half of law enforcement agencies have acquired body-worn cameras by 2016. 

The Salem City Council voted in November 2021 to accept a $816,000 state grant to fund a body-worn camera program for police. The state grant will cover the first two years of the department’s equipment costs.

Salem police will start recording Monday with body cameras

One major element of the program is an in-car camera system which recognizes license plate numbers on moving and parked vehicles. That information is captured and stored in a secure police database. 

The system can allow police to find a vehicle based on time and location data. Ditto said the system only scans for a license plate entered into the system and the only data that is collected is the time and place of that license plate. 

That can help police identify stolen vehicles.

Ditto said the system does not obtain any identifying information about the owner of the vehicle linked to the license plate numbers. 

“The in-car camera system greatly expands and enhances our ability for our automated license plate readers, so now all the police cars that are driving throughout the city are capturing all the license plates that are parked and driving by,” Womack told councilors. “It is a huge investigative tool for us. We’ve solved multiple crimes quickly by being able to locate where vehicles were during certain times and places. That is greatly expanded as well.” 

Ditto said in-car cameras complement body-worn cameras. 

“One example would be when officers arrive at a chaotic scene and focus their attention on a certain area when they are unaware that other areas of the scene may have more critical information,” Ditto said. “The cameras may capture and archive that information for later viewing.” 

Ditto told Salem Reporter the police department does not track how many crimes were solved using the new technology, but said anecdotally, officers and detectives use the recordings from the new police cameras the same way they would use surveillance from businesses to identify suspects or witness descriptions. 

Womack stressed the cameras provide accountability on both sides of the lens and could potentially limit the police department’s exposure to civil liability, ultimately saving the city money. With footage and audio available, it is far easier to determine the facts in a given situation, Womack said. 

“Now there is a video recording, audio recording of every interaction we are having,” Womack said. “So, whether it is an internally generated concern or external complaint that comes in we are able to quickly do an assessment of some of the veracity that’s behind that allegation.” 

Officers are required to activate the camera at the start of any interaction with a person “in which the officer develops reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe a crime or violation has occurred, is occurring or will occur,” according to the Salem police website. “Recording stops when the officer concludes their participation in the contact. In general, casual conversations with community members will not be recorded.”

Police will notify anyone involved that a recording is underway at the start of the interaction “or as soon as it is safe and practicable,” the department’s website says.

Officers can stop recording an interaction at the request of a person if the officer determines that privacy outweighs any police interest in recording, such as an arrest or search. The officer must first record the request by the person to disable the camera along with the officer’s response, and should resume recording the interaction “when privacy is no longer a concern,” according to the website.

Under state law, officers cannot edit or delete recordings captured by such cameras. Law enforcement agencies are required to edit the video to redact the faces of any person that is captured. The department keeps an original video intact.

For any recording not related to a court proceeding or pending investigation, the department will preserve recordings from body-worn or dash cameras for at least 190 days, and no more than 30 months.

In cases that do not have suspect information, are rejected by the district attorney’s office, or don’t result in any charges being filed, the Salem police will retain video based on the seriousness of the instance. They will be kept permanently for homicides, six years for felonies, 190 days for non-criminal offenses and 3 months for misdemeanors and violations.More information on the police department’s camera program is available on the city’s website.

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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