St. Matthews Police Department begins using bodycams with special feature

St. Matthews Police Department just started equipping officers with body-worn cameras.It was made possible thanks in part to a $90,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice."You want the community to know what you're doing, and we're fine with that," said St. Matthews Chief Barry Wilkerson. "We believe we do the right things. We make mistakes like everybody else. But, you know, when you make those mistakes, you admit to them, and you correct it, and you move on."Wilkerson says these cameras have an important feature that makes them reliable and effective.The cameras are Motorola brand, the same as the cameras in officers' vehicles. This enables synchronized activation, either from the body cam or the car's camera, so incidents are more thoroughly documented and easier to review. It also allows for video uploads to cloud storage without having to return to the police station."If they're near that vehicle, it will actually upload to the cloud immediately, which gives us access to the situation almost immediately," Wilkerson said.Even if the camera is not activated, video (but not audio) is stored in the camera's memory and can still be downloaded."There are times when things happen quickly—they may not have them on. So this gives us the flexibility to go back and get that," Wilkerson said.