
SMITHFIELD – Police Chief Pete Hedrick says all officers on the force are now equipped with body cameras. Chief Hedrick made the announcement during the Jan. 7 meeting of the Smithfield Town Council.
“We are excited to have this technology that will improve our service to the community,” Hedrick said. “We will be better able to ensure that our officers are doing the right things and just as importantly it will help strengthen our cases for court.”
Added benefits of the new cameras include “real time” tracking of the exact location of officers. The cameras also have a cell phone feature, so if the police two-way radio doesn’t work the device can be used as a backup method to contact officers.
The body cameras were funded by a $124,000 federal grant awarded to the Smithfield Police Department in 2024.
I’m glad they say the need for it after the Amazon incident.
Great. Now make them public record.
@Mike: Doubtful. The General Assembly has ensures that most recordings are never seen. To date, less than 2% of all requested footage has been released (per NC DOJ). #VoteOutIncumbents
So say you get pulled over and you hand over your ID with all your information on it which will be clearly visible in the recording. Would you really want just anyone able to request it and get it because its public record? Say your children’s information is also in that recording, would you want that out there as well? I see your point, you want it public record because you think it will expose corruption, but someone’s right to protect their personal information should override someone’s right to request something just because some think it should be public record. Figure that out and they probably would be public record.
Surprised it took this long. They should have been standard long ago.
This is great news!!! Looks like we’ll start having real time evidence on the “my baby aint do nuffins”!!! ‘Bout time!!!
A lot of folks are going to be surprised, then outraged that these cameras have helped us many more times than they’ve hurt us. Most of the people who claim police abuse or false arrest are straight-up liars, just like the Amazon guy.
There is actually a reason they aren’t seen. They protect the actually criminal from being labeled “guilty” before a trial. Everyone likes to think it is to catch police doing bad things but in most cases it will prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt unless the defendants lawyer gets it thrown out, which is more than likely to occur UNLESS the police did something wrong.
I think it is a great thing that the Smithfield Police got the cams for all the officers. They need the protection from all the people that call foul play by them, and it turns out the officer is innocent.