Oxford County, Maine

• Judge dismisses Oxford    Aviation's bankruptcy case

• Sheriffs oppose state    takeover of county jails

• Jails ask legislature for    $2.5 million bailout

• Commissioners approve $2.9    million tax note

• Bonnie Seames named EMA    Director of the year

• Budget evening out

• Corrections chief calls for    state takeover of jails

• State police operations    going well since split

• Jail feeling space crunch

• Commissioners asked to    address Privacy concerns

• More calls reported since    call-sharing ended

• Bethel police calls    decrease over last 3 years

• Lawmakers promise fix of
   county jail system

• Sheriff seeks re-election

• 2014 final budget OK'd

• Sheriff scraps coverage    agreement with state police

• Photos from Oct. 15 public    hearing on 2014 budgets

• 911 dispatch - the glue that    binds emergency services

• County tax levy by towns

Oxford County deputies to be given wearable cameras

by Peter McGuire, Staff Writer Sun Journal Feb. 19, 2014

If you happen to get pulled over by a sheriff's deputy in Oxford County in the near future, there's a good chance your conversation will be video-recorded and stored, if not for posterity, then at least for department records. 

That's because the Oxford County Sheriff's Office has begun equipping its personnel with wearable digital cameras so they can record, from a first-person perspective, their interactions with drivers they pull over, suspects they interview, or crime scenes they investigate.

Chief Deputy Hart Daley
Chief Deputy Hart Daley of the Oxford County Sheriff's Office attaches one of the new wearable digital cameras in his office in Paris on Feb. 18. Twelve deputies will be outfitted with the devices.

According to Chief Deputy Hart Daley, the department recently purchased 12 "cop vu" cameras with money from a federal Justice Assistance Grant. The cameras cost about $900 apiece, he said.

"It's going to be invaluable for criminal prosecution, investigative purposes and liability concerns for the county," Daley told Oxford County commissioners Tuesday.

The cameras, about the size and shape of a small cellphone, have a heavy-duty alligator clip that can be attached to the front of a deputy's uniform. Sliding a protective slip down away from the lens turns the camera and microphone on.

Daley said the camera's memory can hold about four hours of footage, and the password-protected content can be uploaded directly onto a department laptop through a USB cable.

continued

 

If the drop-down menu bar isn't working, check to see if your IE has been upgraded. Click here for instructions on how to fix the problem.