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West Valley City police are seeking the City Council's OK to expand its current $1 million contract with TASER International for stun weapons and body camera video storage.
Chief Lee Russo presented his plan to the council Tuesday, asking for an additional $321,336 over the next four years of the existing five-year contract. It appears to have been pretty well accepted by council members, who plan a formal vote on it next week.
Under his proposal, the department would be able to purchase 190 new stun guns to equip every West Valley City officer except administrative personnel with what the chief called a "vital tool." TASER would buy back all of the department's current Tasers.
The department currently does not provide stun guns to officers in its investigations section or other specialty units, although Russo said these officers need this weaponry.
Councilman Lars Nordfelt agreed that every officer interacting with the public should have a Taser.
"It really gives officers another tool to keep things safe without having to resort to something that's even more harmful," he said.
Additionally, under the chief's proposal the department would receive unlimited storage of body-cam digital images, data which currently are accumulating at the rate of more than two terabytes per month, which equates to the data capacity of more than 400 DVDs.
"One of the issues that has arisen during this first year [of the body camera program] is that our current storage space for digital evidence is not adequate to hold the number of digital videos and images produced by officers, which must be stored for certain time periods according to Utah state law," Russo said in his proposal to the council.
That data collection likely will increase significantly under another feature of the expanded program sought by Russo. It includes 90 signal units to be installed in police vehicles that would automatically activate body cameras of officers when their cars' police lights are switched on or when they turn on their stun guns.
"It ensures when there is a crisis, an emergency response when they flip their overheads on, we're going to see from the moment they start responding to a call what's going on, what the officer is seeing and what they are experiencing," Russo said in an interview.
"We're spending over a five year period a million-plus dollars on these body cameras to ensure that they're working. We want to make sure for everybody's protection — the officers,' the citizens' and public trust and confidence and transparency — that that equipment is working."
Nordfelt said the chief gave a "compelling argument" for the contract expansion.
"I will vote to give him what he needs to make it so our residents are safe," said the councilman, son of former West Valley City mayor and police chief Dennis Nordfelt. "We have a difficult job to balance the wise use of our budget with the services that are provided by the city, but safety is a really important issue to me and to the rest of our council."