The Cole County Sheriff Department adopted body cameras at the beginning of October.
After increased pressure from residents and protestors after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, various departments implemented body cameras.
Cole County decided to buy body cameras in an attempt to become more transparent to the community.
“We’re still hesitant with some of them because we want to make sure they’re used for what they’re supposed to be used for,” Cole County Chief Deputy John Wheeler said. “We don’t want people to sunshine these videos, and try to make our people look bad.”
With the cameras, the department also hopes to ease communication between deputies and the public.
Deputies and other department employees are required to wear the body cameras while they are on duty. Policy mandates that the camera be recording whenever a deputy is engaged with a citizen.
The body cameras and the software cost the Cole County Sheriff Department roughly $10,000.
“The cameras weren’t the issue. The cameras were cheap. It’s the server that we had to buy, the server was $10,000, to put it in place,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler said the server is more advanced than other software. With this specific server, footage cannot be duplicated or altered.
Other counties using body cameras are Boonville, Callaway County and Moniteau County Sheriff Departments.