New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
“Chief Richard Nighelli is pleased to announce that the Marion Police Department launched its body-worn camera program last week.
As of Friday, April 12, approximately 75% of Marion Police officers have undergone the requisite training to be able to wear and operate the cameras. All officers who have undergone the training are now wearing the body-worn cameras while on duty. The Department has set a deadline of May 1 for all sworn officers to be trained and wearing the cameras.
As part of the program, all sworn officers will be outfitted with a V700 LTE Body Camera, which will be affixed to the officer’s uniform to prevent it from detaching.
Marion Police Department photo.
All full-time Marion Police officers will be assigned a body-worn camera. Additional body-worn cameras will be available to part-time officers at the start of each shift. Officers will activate their body-worn cameras during routine calls for service, investigatory stops, traffic stops, foot and vehicle pursuits, emergency driving situations, situations that would gather evidence to enhance in prosecution, and in situations that the officer — through training and experience — believes it’s necessary and/or beneficial.
The Marion Police Department’s body-worn camera policy establishes guidelines for the proper use, management, storage and retrieval of video and audio data recorded by a body-worn camera during the program.
The purpose of the program is to continue to foster trust and positive community relationships by providing greater transparency. Along with greater transparency, body cameras can promote de-escalation, resolve citizen complaints and provide a valuable training tool.
Marion Police received two grants to support the program. The department was awarded $42,530 from the Healey-Driscoll Administration as part of the Fiscal Year 2024 Body-Worn Cameras (BWC) Grant Program. The state awarded $3.6 million in grant funds to 52 local police departments to implement or expand body-worn camera programs across Massachusetts.
Additionally, the Marion Police Department requested 22 cameras and received a $38,063.50 grant from the Small, Rural, and Tribal Body-Worn Camera Program, a body-worn camera program designed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance and Justice & Security Strategies. The program has awarded $7.1 million in grant funding to 265 small, rural and tribal law enforcement agencies to support body-worn camera programs in the U.S.
“We want to notify the Marion community that we have launched this program and soon all of our officers will be equipped with body-worn cameras,” Chief Nighelli said. “Our hope is to promote transparency and further strengthen our relationship with our community members.”
President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing placed a priority on body camera research and camera programs. The Task Force’s final report indicated that officers wearing body cameras had “87.5 percent fewer incidents of use of force and 59 percent fewer complaints than the officers not wearing the cameras.”-Marion Police Department.
