After the pandemic sidelined his efforts to outfit all state Department of Public Safety troopers with body cameras earlier this year, Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday announced a stopgap plan prompted by a gift from “private suppliers.” 

The 150-camera donation — which the Governor’s Office said was offered to, not solicited by, the Ducey administration — is meant to tide DPS over until lawmakers reconvene and revisit the governor’s broader body camera proposal next year. 

Neither the Governor’s Office nor DPS would name the private entities behind the donation, however, citing contracts that have yet to be finalized. Nor would they elaborate on the conditions that may be part of those contracts, such as whether the cameras come with the expectation the state will use the same companies for related services. 

If so, the vendors would come out ahead: While body cameras themselves are relatively inexpensive — some models cost less than $200 each — monthly storage and maintenance expenses can easily cost a large department hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. 

Then, there’s the cost of tech support and staffing expenses related to processing and redacting footage in response to public records requests. The price tag for Ducey’s January proposal, which called for 1,267 body cameras and 20 new positions to manage the footage, was $4.8 million.

Providing the initial round of DPS cameras also could give the supplier a competitive edge if officials consider a longer and more expensive body camera contract next year.

DPS spokesman Bart Graves said the camera donation will allow the agency to pilot the equipment in rural and urban areas and “better understand the costs and resources needed for a successful statewide deployment.” But he offered few specifics about the rollout. 

“More information regarding the vendors and conditions and timeline will be made available as contracts are finalized,” he said. 

Camera usage uneven in Arizona

DPS is the largest law enforcement agency in the state that doesn’t equip its officers with body cameras, though some of its patrol cars have dash cameras.

All police officers in Mesa, Tempe, Chandler and Glendale use body cameras, as do Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputies, according to representatives for those agencies. 

Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, has pushed to require all law enforcement agencies to use body cameras since 2015. It wasn’t until the governor adopted a scaled-back version of that idea that the House of Representatives agreed to pay for it. 

Before the state Senate could advance the legislation further, COVID-19 hit and “upended a lot,” Ducey spokesman Patrick Ptak said. “What ended up passing and getting signed was a slimmer budget to prepare for economic uncertainty.”

Ptak said reviving the broader proposal “remains a priority,” and the Governor’s Office intends to work with the Legislature to push it through next year.

But Ducey so far has ignored Democratic lawmakers’ calls for a special legislative session on police reform, even as the body camera issue has complicated investigations into high-profile shootings by law enforcement.

In late May, a state trooper shot 28-year-old Dion Johnson to death after a struggle after finding him sleeping inside his car on the side of Loop 101 in north Phoenix.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office opted not to criminally charge the trooper following a probe that lacked body camera footage — information that police almost certainly would have collected had the incident happened on a city street nearby.

Republic reporter Richard Ruelas contributed to this article.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-653-6807. Follow her on Twitter @mpolletta.

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