BATTLE GROUND, Wash. — On Monday morning, Battle Ground police officers in Southwest Washington will have a new addition when putting on their uniforms: a body-worn camera.
Battle Ground Police Chief Dennis Flynn believes the implementation of body-worn cameras among the city’s 28 commissioned officers will foster transparency and trust.
“The truth is, the public pays for our service," Flynn said. "And they have a right to know what it is that we do.”
Battle Ground City Council approved buying the cameras on May 6, with the help of city funds and around $67,000 from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) Body-Worn Camera Grant Program.
Funding can be an obstacle for small departments hoping to add body worn cameras to their repertoire. Storage of body cameras can also be pricey, Flynn said. Though for Battle Ground, funding was not a large deterrent. To combat the issue nationally, the federal government is allocating funding to small agencies.
The city of Battle Ground is following in the footsteps of several other Clark County law enforcement agencies who’ve all implemented the cameras within the last three years. According to an investigation in 2020 conducted by KING 5 news in Seattle, no officers within Clark County wore body cameras at the time.
Since then, the Camas Police Department implemented body worn cameras about two years later in April of 2022. Both the Vancouver Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office added cameras for each officer in 2023.
The table below shows which law enforcement agencies in Clark County have implemented body camera programs and which ones have not.
Officers with the Ridgefield Police Department do not have body cameras, though city manager Steve Stuart said that could change by next year.
“We have been studying the lessons learned from other local agencies who already have a program to assure the best implementation in Ridgefield,” Stuart wrote in an email. “We are currently finalizing policies for a body-worn camera program that our city council will consider later this year.”
Stuart added that the department has already received a $38,000 federal grant to help cover costs associated with the body-worn camera program.
“They change when there’s a push to change,” said Bryce Peterson, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, talking about police department's stance on body cameras.
The Northwest was slow to embrace body cameras, Peterson said. The Portland Police Bureau was one of the last large city police agencies to implement body cameras. They started wearing body cameras in June.
Though the cameras do make a difference, Peterson said.
“Complaints do go down," Peterson said. "So, when officers wear body cameras, community members are less likely to lodge complaints against officers.”