LAKELAND – It would cost Lakeland approximately $9 million to equip 200 of the city's police officers with body cameras and in-vehicle cameras for the next 10 years, according to police department.
Lakeland Police Chief Ruben Garcia presented three options for equipping the city's officers with video, either body cameras or on vehicle dashboards, to city commissioners on Monday morning. It's the city's first discussion on possibly implementing body cameras since the topic came up in public forums amid last year's national protests after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota.
"There's a perception that body-worn cameras is a useful tool and there are some arenas within this profession they could be useful," Garcia said. "Recent research ... says your biggest value is deploying these in a troubled agency."