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2020 Annual Report • Police Department • St. Anthony Village, Minnesota <br /> <br /> <br />33 | Page <br /> <br />XIII. Body Worn Camera Program (BWC) <br />PREPARED BY CAPTAIN JEFF SPIESS <br />The St. Anthony Police Department’s Body Worn Camera (BWC) program has just completed <br />its second full year of implementation. All officers, including our Community Service Officer, <br />wear a BWC during nearly all official interactions with the public and upload videos to a server <br />for storage. The BWC’s work in concert with the squad car camera system and our facility <br />cameras at the police department, which provides for complete video and audio coverage of an <br />event from the street to the police department. The program has proven to be quite a success <br />and one that is embraced by all of our staff. <br />The BWCs have quickly become an essential part of our everyday operations. Videos are often <br />disseminated to county and city attorney’s as part of the criminal complaint process, and have <br />been integral in resolving cases quickly and for providing support to officer testimony. In <br />addition, videos are reviewed as part of all use-of-force incidents, to ensure that officer actions <br />were reasonable and within the scope of department policy. Finally, BWC videos are utilized in <br />any report of alleged officer misconduct. While the department received no formal complaints <br />against officers in 2020, BWC video was vital in exonerating officers of any wrongdoings after <br />two allegations of misconduct in 2019. <br />As part of our commitment to accountability and transparency, we conduct an internal <br />compliance check on a monthly basis to ensure that the BWCs are being utilized according to <br />policy. This is accomplished by supervisors reviewing a specified number of videos for each <br />officer on his/her shift. The supervisor is checking that a video is present for the incident, that it <br />was classified correctly for retention purposes, and that equipment was working properly and <br />consistent with policy. Additionally, supervisors are ensuring that officers are professional and <br />adhering to the tenants of Procedural Justice and Fair & Impartial Policing. In 2020, the internal <br />compliance checks yielded a high compliance rate of 98 percent among all personnel. Of the <br />videos that fell out of compliance, there was no pattern of non-compliance by any single officer. <br />Additionally, none of these videos resulted in a negative impact to the department (i.e. the <br />incident was not significant in nature or the incident was viewable from other activated BWCs <br />on scene). <br />Per Minnesota State Statute, the department participated in a biennial auditing of our BWC <br />program by an outside, independent auditor. The auditor evaluates whether data is