Georgetown Police Dept. to get body-worn cameras

LEXINGTON, Ky. (ABC36 NEWS NOW) – It’s an exciting time for the Georgetown Police Department.

Officers will soon be wearing body cams.

“We are looking to get cameras from Axon,” said Chief of Police Darin Allgood. “This has been a long process I guess you’ll say. We started looking into it several years ago, but the funding just wasn’t there.”

Chief Allgood says they wanted to get their staffing up first because they felt the need for officers outweighed the need for cameras.

And now that they have more staff they have decided to get cameras.

“We’ve ordered 86, that will gives a few spares in case somebody has issues with one or something breaks. So everybody will have a camera,” said Allgood.

According to Allgood, the cameras are Bluetooth activated and as soon as the blue lights in the car turn on, the body camera will turn on as well.

And just next month the cameras will arrive. Allgood says it will be a “huge undertaking'” getting the system installed into every car.

“And then in July we plan to roll out the cameras,” said Allgood. “The officers will start wearing them and we’ll have a 60 day learning curve, or trial, just to get used to wearing them.”

One reason they chose Axon is because it is already set up with the county and commonwealth attorneys.

Allgood believes that while the department has a good relationship with the community these cameras will help with any “he said she said.”

“So I think it will just help if there is a frivolous complaint that does come in, we’ll be able to look at it really quick and see if it’s false or not,” said Allgood.