SAN ANTONIO – Body camera video is a new technology which is creating challenges for both local law enforcement and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
The county is working with Microsoft to create a system that allows video that is recorded by a body camera to be easily accessible to prosecutors and law enforcement.
Currently, San Antonio Police Department officers must hand-deliver a DVD or a drive containing the video to the District Attorney’s Office, taking time and manpower.
“There’s no problem when we finally get them,” said Nico LaHood, Bexar County district attorney. “It’s getting them to us in a timely manner so we can evaluate the cases and move them along.”
Mark Gager, chief information and technology officer for Bexar County, said his office is working with Microsoft to come up with a solution by allowing law enforcement to upload video to a cloud-based system, enabling officers and prosecutors to access the video more easily.
The county will pay for the system, which is estimated to cost $580,000 plus $209,000 annually to maintain it.
The system should be in place in the first quarter of 2017, but a temporary solution should be online before that.
“We are working on an interim solution that will be in place this fall that isn’t leveraging the Microsoft platform, but will allow us to reduce the manual steps of burning DVDs and transporting them to the DA,” Gager said.
Instead of the cloud, officers will put the video on a Bexar County server.
"Then we pick up that evidence and we get it over and put it into the DA’s system of record,” Gager said.
"This is all part of this new normal that we're dealing with,” LaHood said. “But in my opinion, it’s a good new normal.”
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has deployed body cameras to eight of its motorcycle units, but the cameras remain in the testing phase.
The Sheriff’s Office expects to fully deploy the cameras by the end of the year.