The Waterloo City Council on Monday night approved body cameras and new in-car cameras for the Waterloo Police Department.

Aldermen approved an agreement with AXON for the purchase of 16 body cameras and related equipment and 18 in-car cameras and related equipment over a period of five years for a total cost of $206,678.

Waterloo Police Chief Jeff Prosise said his department will receive the body cams in about 4-6 weeks, but the in-car cams probably won’t arrive until October due to the current microchip shortage.

This purchase will allow all WPD officers to be equipped with body cameras in addition to what is an upgrade to the current in-car camera system.

In May, the Monroe County Board approved a similar purchase of body cams for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department. 

Per state law, body cameras will be required for all law enforcement officers for communities in Illinois with a population of 100,000 or less by January 2025.

Effective Jan. 1, 2023, any person can file notice of an anonymous complaint to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training Standards Board for conduct that would qualify an officer for decertification. 

Body cameras are designed to provide factual records of interactions between authorities and citizens.

“It’s inevitable,” Prosise said of the reason for cameras, adding that WPD patrol cars have had dashboard cameras for years. “I’m glad the city is supportive of this purchase.”

Prosise added that his department has applied for a state grant to hopefully recoup some of these costs.

The new in-car cameras will have unlimited storage, Prosise said, while the body cams will offer 3.5 terabytes of storage. That amounts to about 218 gigbytes of storage per officer.

The cameras will be replaced multiple times as part of the five-year agreement, Prosise explained, or anytime one gets broken.

Prosise said the dashboard cameras have been helpful in the past and he expects a similar result with the new ones.

“Our officers are in favor of it. They don’t have anything to hide,” he said.

Some key features as part of the AXON body camera system include a “signal sidearm” that automatically activates the camera once an officer pulls his/her gun from the holster or deploys a Taser.

The new body camera requirement came as part of a massive criminal justice overhaul approved by state lawmakers earlier this year to serve as tools for protecting civil rights, gathering evidence and protecting officers against accusations of misconduct.

In other action from the meeting, the council approved the re-appointments of Ken Perkins, Rita Trantham and Phillip Kelley to the Morrison-Talbott Library Board of Trustees for three-year terms.

A check in the amount of $7,910.75 was presented to Tony Groves through the Waterloo Beautification Program for improvements to his property located at 702 Rogers Street.

Waterloo Community Relations Coordinator Sarah Deutch told the council that the Waterloo Mural Contest received 16 total entries from 14 different artists. Five winners will be chosen to have their designs painted at various locations in the city.