Harnett County sheriff's deputies will soon be equipped with body cameras
HARNETT COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Harnett County's Sheriff's Office will start equipping deputies with body cameras as early as November.
Our newsgathering partners at the Daily Record said the cameras will not cost the taxpayers any money.
Harnett County Sheriff Wayne Coats told the Daily Record that $97,310 in forfeiture funds seized from criminals will be used to purchase 67 body cameras. The body cameras will be in addition to dash cameras, which were rolled out in 2021.
Coats said he hopes a big asset of the body cameras will be de-escalation.
"When we go to these scenes and people are yelling and hollering, if you don't have the body cameras, you can't prove what happened," he said to the Daily Record.
The Daily Record reported that Cumberland, Lee and Sampson counties all use body cameras and, in most cases, in-car cameras for all deputies.
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