Portland’s long

At the Portland Police Bureau's Central Precinct in downtown Portland on Aug. 17, 2023, Officer Dave Baer held up one of the body-worn cameras some officers will wear during a 60-day pilot program.Dave Killen / The Oregonian

After nearly a decade of sometimes contentious discussions and negotiations, the Portland Police Bureau ends its tenure Monday as the nation’s largest municipal police agency without body-worn cameras.

About 150 officers will don the devices for a 60-day pilot program starting this week.

“This is huge and it’s long overdue,” said police spokesperson Lt. Nathan Sheppard. “It’s going to make it safer for officers, it’s going to make it safer for the public, because everybody’s going to know there is going to be an irrefutable account of what happened.”

Here are seven things to know about the program:

The test run goes through Oct. 19. The Police Bureau will use the information gathered during the pilot to determine how it will manage the permanent body-worn camera program starting next year.

Efforts to equip officers with the cameras have been delayed for years, primarily due to disagreements between the city and its police union over whether to allow officers who use deadly force to view camera footage before writing their reports or being interviewed by investigators. Initial opposition from former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and other competing city interests also stymied the rollout.

Under a negotiated policy between the city and police union, officers who use deadly force won’t get to view their camera’s footage until after they provide investigators with an audio-recorded statement within 48 hours of the incident.

About 150 officers – those assigned to the Central Precinct, including the Neighborhood Response Team and the bike squad, and officers with the Focused Intervention Team that works to curb gun violence – will be outfitted with the Axon cameras.

The Police Bureau planned to use $3.2 million that had been set aside to buy body camera equipment for the pilot program and selected Axon, a company formerly known as Taser International, as the vendor. Axon loaned the bureau 177 cameras for the pilot program. The Police Bureau will need to negotiate a contract for bureau-wide use after the pilot ends.

At the Portland Police Bureau's Central Precinct in downtown Portland on Aug. 17, 2023, Officer Dave Baer held up one of the body-worn cameras some officers will wear during a 60-day pilot program.Dave Killen / The Oregonian

Officers are required to start recording anytime they’re dispatched to respond to a call. The camera, which is clipped to the officers’ vest at chest height, is activated by pressing a large button in the center.

The recording includes a 30-second “buffer” of video footage showing what was happening immediately before the recording started. The camera captures 30-second increments of video but doesn’t store the video until a recording starts.

The cameras also automatically start recording whenever officers draw their weapons or activate their vehicle’s flashing lights, thanks to Bluetooth sensors placed on their pistol holsters, stun gun batteries, weapons lock boxes and cars.

When those sensors activate, they also turn on the cameras of any other officer within 100 feet.

Recordings stop when an officer presses the button on the center of the device. Before an officer mutes or ends a recording, the officer is required by policy to explain why.

Any officer who fails to narrate their reasoning for stopping a video can “expect to be disciplined,” said Officer David Baer, the head of the Police Bureau’s bike squad and a participant in the pilot program.

Yes – as long as the officer is following the Police Bureau’s body-worn camera policy.

When officers approach people while recording, they must identify themselves and tell the people that they’re being audio- and video-recorded. The cameras also flash red blinking lights and emit loud beeping sounds whenever they start recording and whenever the recording is stopped.

If officers aren’t able to notify people that they’re being recorded, they must explain why in their report.

The cameras are paired to officers’ smartphones, which upload any recordings to a cloud system managed by Axon, the company that makes the cameras. Officers cannot delete or edit the videos and the system tracks when a video is viewed and by whom.

At the end of a shift, officers must attach case numbers to every video and file them into categories (such as “pedestrian stop” or “DUII”). Officers then must plug the camera into a dock that uploads the videos as evidence.

All of the Police Bureau’s nearly 300 patrol officers are expected to be outfitted with the cameras between April and August 2024, but the bureau must go through union contract negotiations and training first.

The body camera recordings can be accessed by filing a public records request, but it may take a while before they’re released if they’re part of an active investigation, Sheppard said.

-- Catalina Gaitán, [email protected], @catalinagaitan_

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CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the date the body-worn camera pilot program ends, which is Oct. 19, 2023.

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