Aug 3, 2022 3 min read

Washington police will be conducting a trial run with body cameras throughout August.

Police Chief Daniel Rush told City Council Monday that four cameras were to be delivered Tuesday by Motorola WatchGuard that will enable officers to learn how to activate the body cameras and how to tag incidents within the camera.

“We’ve been investigating this for a while,” Rush said after Monday’s meeting. “Fortunately, with this department in this area we don’t have a lot of problems with citizens complaining about our officers. If I have a complaint against an officer, it allows me to go to the camera and determine what happened.”

The camera is activated upon dispatch to a call and remains active through the call.

“It’s just going to give me a wider range of investigatory tools to use should these complaints come in,” Rush said. “It also helps us with evidence collection. We’re excited about it. The guys are excited about it. They’ve been excited to get them.”

Rush anticipates being able to provide a comprehensive report on the cameras in September.

If council approves them, it will take about six months before the department receives the cameras, giving the city time to allot funds in the 2023 budget for the purchase.

“I’m hoping this trial will let us roll seamlessly into it,” Rush said. “The guys will be trained on it. They’ll know how to use the software so there won’t be any down time between the time we get the cameras and the time we start to use them.”

Also at Monday’s council meeting, fire Chief Chris Richer said the department’s new engine is reaching the end of its training phase.

“After that, we’ll be ready to put that into service,” Richer told council. “All of the equipment is accounted for and on the engine. We have flow testing coming up on Thursday, so we have our pumping calculations in place. A little bit of water will be run through the weekend, and we will be ready to go. We’re excited to roll that out.”

Richer said a dedication of the engine will probably be held later this month.

Council approved the purchase of a new fire truck in January 2021, with the contract being awarded to Pierce Manufacturing for $633,195.

Community Development Block Grant funding was allocated for the purchase, including $134,000 in 2021 CDBG funds.

In other business, Jeff Donatelli, code enforcement officer, said about 60 cars have been removed from West Chestnut Street, the location of a junkyard with which the city has had issues.

“This is a really good thing. We’ve been working on this for quite a while,” Donatelli told council. “It’s not done. There’s still a lot to get done, but this is a really good start.”

Donatelli said after the meeting that once the owner of the property was located, the city was able to make some progress.

“You’re allowed to have nuisance vehicles, as long as they’re behind a locked fence,” Donatelli said. “All of that stuff was sitting out.”