City Officers Still Not Equipped With Body Cams

There is still no update on when Saint John Police Force officers will be equipped with body cameras.

Last July, the force announced it would spend $770,000 over five years to equip all front-line officers with cameras.

The new technology was expected to be rolled out in November, but the launch was delayed with no new date announced.

“They’re not rolled out yet,” Chair Ed Keyes said during the monthly Saint John Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Tuesday when asked for an update.

“They won’t be rolled out until all of the policies are in place and approved for them.”

Black Lives Matter New Brunswick has called on the force to release the plan to the public once it is approved.

Former mayor Don Darling, who sat on the commission until stepping down in December, publicly called for the rollout to be delayed until that happened.

Meanwhile, acting police Chief Tony Hayes said the impacts of last fall’s cyber attack against the city have also delayed the rollout.

The attack forced the city to shut down all of its IT systems and rebuild its entire network.

“We’re actually waiting on infrastructure because of the cyber attack. There’s a whole bunch of applications that need to come online for us to be able to start to roll out the body-worn camera platform,” said Hayes.

Because of the IT issues, Keyes said they cannot give a timeframe for the rollout at this point.

“As we continue to re-establish our internal programming, a decision on the activation and rollout date of the Body Worn Cameras, will be decided upon and shared with citizens,” spokesperson Jim Hennessy told our newsroom in March.