Sheriff’s Office to issue new body-cam system to deputies

The Sheridan County Sheriff’s office has conducted a year’s worth of research to determine the best new integrated camera system to issue to deputies in the field. 

An integrated camera system operates both the dash camera and on-body camera simultaneously, according to Lieutenant Levi Dominguez of the Sheridan County Sheriff’s office. This allows two views of the interaction with the public as well as continued recording should the deputy need to step away from their vehicle. 

The Sheriff’s office chose a system developed by WatchGuard at a cost of approximately $127,000. The new integrated system will replace a camera system that has been used by deputies for over a decade and, according to Dominguez, began to cause problems within computer servers. 

The system is also utilized by the Sheridan Police Department, during an appearance on Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse, Dominguez informed listeners on the many reasons the Sheriff’s Office chose the new integrated system.

The Sheriff’s Office will field the new cameras in the first weeks of August, taking approximately one month to fully integrate and install the system. 

According to the National Institute of Justice, in 2014, researchers at Arizona State University found that officers with body-worn cameras were more productive in terms of making arrests, had fewer complaints lodged against them relative to officers without body-worn cameras, and had higher numbers of citizen complaints resolved in their favor.