The Honolulu Police Department hopes to have patrol officers in at least one of its districts equipped with body cameras by the end of the year under a pilot project, HPD officials told the City Council Budget Committee on Thursday.
Acting Chief Cary Oki-moto said his preference would be to test the use of body cams in a district on Oahu that typically has a high rate of complaints against officers.
“The short answer is we want to get it going before this year is over,” he said. “We think it’s a valuable tool. For the purposes of keeping complaints down, we feel that that’s the way to go.”
Acting Deputy Chief William Axt said he was scheduled to meet Thursday afternoon with representatives from the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, or SHOPO, the police union, to go over a proposed policy regarding the use of body cameras.
The biggest challenge — and expense — deals with the storage of data collected by the cameras, Axt said. “It comes down to how long are you going to store, what are you going to capture, what resolution are you going to store that information in. It could cost millions of dollars just for the storage.”
“Once we find out which cameras we’re going to use, or the ones that are in the running, we’re going to have a pilot project,” Okimoto said. “And then we’re going to find out exactly how the storage is going to work, how many requests we’re going to have to download video, and the little intricacies.”
Axt said after the budget briefing that HPD has allocated $1 million in the fiscal 2018 budget for the body-cam pilot project but that it won’t be enough to cover all the costs. He declined to provide estimates.
In July an HPD officer said using 500 cameras over three shifts a day would create about 4,000 terabytes of data annually that would cost between $1.5 million to $3 million to store.
The police departments in all three other Hawaii counties have implemented or at least tested the technology. HPD has at least four times as many sworn officers as any of the neighbor island departments.
Overall, Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s budget called for HPD to get a 2018 operating budget of $281.4 million, about $6 million, or 2.1 percent, more than the year that ends June 30. Much of the increase is due to pay raises tied to collective bargaining contracts. The budget must be approved by the Council.
Vacancies continue to be a concern for the department. As of Feb. 1 there were 179 vacancies out of 2,143 uniformed authorized positions, a rate of about 8.4 percent. There are 110 recruits currently in training, leaving an actual net of 69 vacancies.
Meanwhile, 333 sworn officers are eligible for retirement. The department would like to continue holding three recruit classes annually to keep pace with retirements, Okimoto said.
“When we reach the 200 amount in vacancies, it’s going to be hard to catch up,” he said.
The department also has 83 civilian positions that are vacant, and hopes to fill 67 of them by June 30.
Among other highlights discussed at HPD’s briefing Thursday:
>> HPD’s scientific investigation section is budgeted for three additional criminalists to conduct analysis on and maintain DNA sex assault kits and other evidence. HPD is outsourcing the testing of up to 1,500 outstanding sex assault kits but has had difficulty finding a vendor that can handle that many kits.
>> The department’s medication budget is $250,000, up $100,000 from this year. That’s partly due to the rising cost of prescription medication that HPD is required to provide to those who are arrested, Okimoto said. The rest is because officers and specific civilian employees are required to get hepatitis B shots.
>> Major capital improvement projects include $2.5 million for repairs and maintenance at substations across the island. That’s in addition to $1.5 million needed to deal with leaking and standing water problems at HPD’s main station on South Beretania Street.
