Body-Worn Camera Site Spotlight: Wichita, KS

Body-Worn Camera Site Spotlight: Wichita, Kansas

Deploying Body-Worn Cameras to SWAT

Source

BWC TTA (2020)

Authors

Aili Malm, California State University, Long Beach and Michael D. White, Arizona State University

Many people know Wichita, Kansas, as the “air capital of the world,” or as the birthplace of both White Castle and Pizza Hut. Wyatt Earp also worked as a Wichita police officer long before the famed 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. More recently, we recognize Wichita as an early adopter and innovator of police body-worn cameras (BWCs). The Wichita Police Department (WPD) first deployed a pilot BWC program with 20 cameras in February 2011, and it was among the inaugural grantees in the first year (2015) of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP). The PIP grant allowed the department to issue cameras to all 429 patrol officers. In 2018, WPD received additional BJA BWC PIP funding to outfit its patrol supervisors with BWCs.

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