Less than two years after equipping all Santa Barbara police cars with dash cams, Police Chief Cam Sanchez is now exploring the feasibility of equipping his officers with body cams.
Sanchez told the City Council Tuesday that his department was about to secure five such cameras for a test run. Body cams, he said, cost from $600-$900 each, and that doesn’t include the $70,000 he estimates the digital storage and access software would cost. The model currently under review is not compatible with the software used to store the digital load carried by the dash cams.
Tuesday’s discussion came less than a week after a YouTube video was posted showing a Santa Barbara Police officer appearing to knock a smartphone from the hands of a passerby videotaping several officers making an arrest on lower State Street by the Velvet Jones nightclub. The department announced it was investigating the matter, and when Councilmember Cathy Murillo asked Sanchez if he knew when the investigation would be complete, he replied with a terse “No.”