Wednesday, March 5, 2008

City police receive grant to purchase cameras for vehicles

Audry Olmsted El Defensor Chieftain Managing Editor

With the help of a recently received grant, Socorro police officers will soon have cameras installed in most of their vehicles that will help them during traffic stops and criminal cases.

The Socorro Police Department received a $7,475 grant from the state Department of Transportation.

"What the grant is for is to purchase specialized equipment for helping (to) prosecute DWI cases," Detective Kenneth Greenwood said. "We're going to purchase five in-car video cameras."

As of now, Greenwood said, officers are only required to videotape interrogations.

With the installation of the new cameras, officers will be able to record all traffic stops, which will help officers build their cases when they go to court.

This way, the judge or jury do not have to rely on just an officer's testimony, but can see what happened during a traffic stop, including field sobriety tests.

Greenwood said another perk of the new cameras is that they will be removable, meaning officers can take them out of their police cars to videotape crime scenes.

"It will help all around," he said.

All traffic stops will be videotaped, Greenwood said, as soon as they get the cameras installed and running.

Even with the grant, some police units will still not have cameras, something that can hopefully be fixed with a future grant.

Greenwood said he hopes to have the cameras in by the beginning of summer.

aolmsted@dchieftain.com

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