Beginning this month, University Police at Oswego State started using body cameras on officers while on duty.

Oswego State’s UP joined the upgrade with Syracuse University and seven other SUNY schools, including SUNY Oneonta, which began using body cameras in 2012 “to document their interactions with community members for purposes of accountability,” according to SUNY Oneonta’s 2020 Strategic Diversity and Inclusion Plan. Oswego Police Department also outfitted their officers with body cameras last December.

“We are constantly looking to new technologies to assist us in keeping our community safe,” said University Police Chief John Rossi. “The cameras will help by giving a much more accurate account of an incident.”

The body cameras, placed on the middle of the chest of the officer’s uniform, records the video and audio of incidents an officer may encounter. If there is a question or a detail missed, the footage can be reviewed while writing a police report.

“The cameras have many beneficial uses,” said University Police Lt. Matthew Barbeau. “They allow officers to go back and recheck important information they may have missed when taking a report. [This] allows our department to be more transparent [and] gives us the ability to provide more documentation to the courts if needed.”

Rossi said it has been proven that negative interactions between police officers and citizens are decreased when a body camera is in use.

Barbeau said they began discussing getting body cameras last semester and spoke to different vendors to research which options best matched the needs for UP’s department and Oswego State. The body cameras and the server they connect to were funded through UP’s equipment account, according to Rossi.

“It hasn’t had much effect on how officers prepare for their daily shifts,” Barbeau said. “The biggest thing was making sure everyone understood the policy on wearing the cameras and understanding what interactions should not be recorded, especially as it relates to events that occur in hospitals, where sensitive medical information could potentially be recorded.”

Rossi said UP officers are bound to a policy and procedure, approved by SUNY’s Office of General Counsel in Albany, that says when the cameras should and should not be used and is almost identical to the model policy and procedure issued by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

“I can’t say for certain that there has been incidents where some information was documented incorrectly, but when an officer has conducted multiple interviews with multiple individuals during the course of an investigation, it is possible that he/she may not fully recall some of the information,” Barbeau said.

Photo by Maria Pericozzi | The Oswegonian