Triangle universities planning body cams for campus police
DURHAM (WTVD) -- Sunday marked the one year anniversary of the police-involved shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Since that day, the conversation about putting body cameras on police officers has been thrown into the spotlight.
Many police departments have started using the technology, and college campuses are no different.
"This is something we've been actually monitoring for the past two years," said Kyle Cavanaugh, Vice President of Administration for Duke University. "We had a very successful pilot with these last spring so we'll be moving forward with these this fall."
Duke's police force consists of 65 officers, and all of them will be equipped with body cameras this fall.
Duke University isn't the only campus with plans to implement body cameras. A call over to the N.C. State University Police Department confirmed they've been testing the technology.
In an email, Michael John with UNC Media Relations said, "[UNC] going to use body cameras here at UNC-Chapel Hill and they have been procured-but not deployed yet."
As for UNC's sister campus in Greensboro, Police Chief Jamie Herring said they have not been able to buy body cameras.
"The legislature still has not issued a budget for the state, so we don't know if we're going to get any budget cuts," Herring said. "So I don't think it'd be appropriate to dedicate to body cams."
But, a body camera is something UNC-G police officers say they want because it can help answer any questions out of range of a police car dash camera.
"If we were to chase somebody, we can't take it with us, a lot of stuff we do isn't revolved around our car," said Brandon McDowell, an officer with UNC-Greensboro police department.
Elon University will roll out body cameras this fall, High Point University is in the process of getting more, and Wake Forest has had them since 2011.
