OCEAN CITY – With the clock winding down on 2022, the first year of the Ocean City Police Department’s use of body-worn cameras has proven to be successful although space and staffing challenges remain.
Earlier this year, the Mayor and Council approved a contract with a private vendor to provide body-worn cameras for the town’s police department officers. Training with the new equipment began in earnest last spring and the body-worn cameras on Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) officers were fully operational by the start of the summer season.
In 2021, state lawmakers passed legislation mandating law enforcement agencies equip their officers with body-worn cameras by 2025. Ocean City, for a variety of reasons, chose to move up its own target date for equipping officers with body-worn cameras to 2022.
Although it has not been a full calendar year with the body-worn cameras for the OCPD, the close of 2022 and the pending start of 2023 provides an opportunity to check on the successes and continued challenges for the new body-worn camera system for OCPD officers. The short answer, according to Worcester County State’s Attorney Kris Heiser, is the program has been highly successful and is achieving the desired results. The long answer is, there continues to be space and staffing issues, solutions for which are being explored.
Of course, implementing the body-worn camera system has caused a trickle down of stress with hours and hours of footage needing to be processed, stored and potentially used as evidence in the prosecution of cases. Earlier this year, the Worcester County Commissioners approved Heiser’s request for 12 new positions, largely due to the resort’s body camera program.
The state’s attorney’s office was prepared for the challenges the new system would create and made appropriate adjustments in advance. Heiser said this week the court system has also made accommodations related to the use of body camera footage.
“The first year of body-worn cameras was certainly challenging, but we had a lot of adjustments in advance to our case management system and upgraded our technology in anticipation of the onslaught of video, and those preparations proved to be effective,” she said. “The district court was also very accommodating as far as consolidating some dockets so that prosecutors have more office time for video review, and I am very grateful for that as well.”
Heiser said she has hired many of the prosecutors and support staff approved by the county commissioners earlier this year but is still looking to fill more vacancies.
“Hiring attorneys and support staff to manage the increased volume is still a challenge,” she said. “Of the 12 positions approved by the commissioners in February, I have hired 10, but I’m still looking for two more attorneys to hire.”
From the beginning, the additional space required to accommodate the body-worn camera system created challenges. In April, the Town of Ocean City agreed to provide additional space for the state’s attorney’s office in an area of the public safety building complex at 65th Street in anticipation of higher workloads for prosecutors and staff. In addition, Worcester County is also exploring space options for the state’s attorney’s office, according to Heiser.
“There are several options being explored, and I am hopeful that we will hear some good news soon about a permanent space large enough to house all of our staff,” she said. “I literally have people working in the rafters at this point. We are also using the small space in the Ocean City District Courthouse, but that only houses four people at maximum, so that’s not a good solution long-term.”
After another busy summer season in Ocean City and the months that have followed, Heiser’s office has realized early success in the operation of the body-worn cameras, but the jury is still out, so to speak, without a full year of implementation.
“As far as the body-worn cameras being helpful in prosecution, I think at this point it isn’t enough of a sample size to have accurate data,” she said. “The Maryland State Police and the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office do not yet have body cameras on all police. However, I can tell you anecdotally police opinion is that wearing the body cameras is helpful to them on the street. When people realize they are being recorded, sometimes they modify their behavior accordingly and become more compliant with officer requests. For defense counsel, I think managing client expectations is easier when you have video evidence showing your client committing the crime in some instances, and for prosecutors, that can make appropriate plea agreements easier to reach.”
With the OCPD ahead of the curve in advance of the 2025 mandate for body-worn cameras, Heiser said some jurisdictions around the state are using Worcester County as a model.
“I think our team has done an admirable job of that, even while being short-staffed, and I would put our IT collaboration with police agencies up against any other county in the state as far as the efficient transfer of video from law enforcement to prosecutors,” she said.
“Other counties have been reaching out to us to use Worcester as a model for case management and information workflow among multiple police agencies, and I think that speaks volumes as to what we’ve accomplished thus far.”
