CMPD wants to ensure cameras record when officers draw guns: ‘We have to be better.’

In 2017, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department spent $2.7 million to get new Tasers that are supposed to activate officers’ body cameras when pulled out and reduce the chances the department would fail to record violent encounters.

But for nearly two years, CMPD has resisted buying technology that starts cameras automatically when officers draw their guns.

Documents obtained by the Observer show that in late 2017 CMPD tested holster sensors but have not bought them.

“The beta test by participating CMPD Officers was judged successful resulting in a low failure rate,” Police Chief Kerr Putney wrote in a March 2018 letter to Assistant City Manager Kim Eagle.

The fatal police shooting of Danquirs Franklin in March has focused attention on CMPD’s use of body-worn cameras.

When CMPD Officer Wende Kerl killed Franklin at a west Charlotte Burger King, her body camera captured footage of the encounter.

The other officer, Larry Deal, did not record a body camera video that could have provided another angle and more information about the moments leading up to the shooting and its aftermath, authorities said.

CMPD, which requires officers on duty to wear body-worn cameras, has refused to say why Deal did not record the encounter with Franklin. Video from Kerl’s camera suggests Deal might not have been wearing a camera.

In response to the shooting, CMPD is considering equipping officers with holster sensors, department spokesman Rob Tufano said.

“Chief (Putney) has made no bones about it,” Tufano said. “We have to be better and sometimes tragedy allows the opportunity.”

But some community activists said they have lobbied CMPD to buy the technology for more than a year and are baffled by CMPD’s failure to act sooner.

“I don’t see why the city would spend the money for Tasers, which are supposed to be non-lethal, and not guns,” said Robert Dawkins, a longtime local activist who wrote letters to the city in 2018 about holster sensors. “That makes no sense. Shootings should be a higher priority.”

Following CMPD’s lead

CMPD equipped and trained all its patrol officers with body cameras in 2015 after videos of police shootings set off national debate about the killings of African-Americans by officers.

The Obama administration and social justice activists pushed police departments to use the cameras, saying they would enhance accountability and transparency.

But the system depends on officers turning on their body cameras before an encounter with a person.

Researchers who study law enforcement say officers sometimes don’t have time or simply forget to active their cameras during potentially dangerous confrontations.

Activists and others say officers have kept cameras off to conceal misconduct.

In Raleigh, law enforcement and relatives of Soheil Antonio Mojarrad have offered conflicting information about the police shooting that killed him last month.

Officer W.B. Edwards, who fired the shots, wore a body camera during the incident and drove a squad car equipped with a dash camera, according to reporting from The (Raleigh) News & Observer.

However, Edwards’ patrol car was parked facing away from the scene and he failed to turn on his body camera, leaving authorities with no recording of the shooting, the newspaper reported.

Susanna Birdsong, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, which has lobbied for the use of holster sensors, said the Raleigh Police Department had been looking into whether it should implement the technology months before the shooting.

No police departments in North Carolina use holster sensors, Birdsong said. Raleigh authorities had been monitoring CMPD’s actions to help determine what it should do.

“One of the questions around here has been what is the experience in Charlotte telling us?” said Birdsong, who said she discussed the issue with Raleigh police. “They were thinking about the low failure rate.”

Birdsong said besides the costs of data storage and other expenses, it is difficult to understand the hesitancy to install holster sensors.

“It sounds like a lesson (CMPD) has already learned,” she said. “They already saw the need for it. The community certainly was telling them there was a need.”

Tufano, the CMPD spokesman, said he could not discuss the costs, saying that officials would negotiate with the manufacturer.

He said CMPD did not yet have a timeline for equipping officers with the holster sensor.

‘The first in line’

Axon Enterprise Inc., formerly known as TASER International, introduced the holster sensor that CMPD tested in 2017.

The sensor attaches to a gun holster and sends a wireless alert to the officer’s body camera when the gun is drawn to activate, according to Axon.

From September 2017through November 2017, CMPD tested sensors on 100 holsters used by officers, according to the letter from Chief Putney to Eagle, the assistant city manager.

Putney wrote that the department suggested design improvement to further reduce failure rates.

Axon planned to put the device on the market in May 2018 and promised CMPD would be the “first in line” to get an opportunity to buy the product, Putney wrote.

The company started production in the summer 2018, according to city documents.

Now, as many as a dozen police departments are already using the holster sensors, said Tufano, the CMPD spokesman. That includes the sheriff’s office in Richland County, S.C., which also tested the device in 2017.

Charlotte City Council member Julie Eiselt said in an email that she recently asked about CMPD implementing holster sensors.

Eiselt said the devices tested by CMPD had a software defect that needed to be fixed.

Local police union president Mark Michalec said he had not heard any concerns about the sensors from members.

Michalec said he figured CMPD would implement the sensor to boost transparency.

Axon did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Does device offer value?

Asked why CMPD had not already equipped officers with the holster sensor, Tufano said the department was conducting “due diligence.”

He said the department has talked with Richland County authorities and received positive feedback about the sensors.

“By all accounts, they are adding value,” Tufano said. “We wanted to do our due diligence.”

Tufano also said that the fatal shooting of Franklin, 27, has played a major role in the department’s thinking about holster sensors.

“Sometimes change happens through tragedy,” he said.

It was not immediately clear how the device would have impacted the case.

Officer Deal’s chest is briefly visible at the end of Officer Kerl’s video, and there is no camera in the spot where CMPD officers typically wear the recording device.

Tufano would not answer questions about Deal, saying there is an ongoing internal investigation to determine whether officers followed department policy.

This story was originally published May 3, 2019 at 6:22 PM with the headline "CMPD wants to ensure cameras record when officers draw guns: ‘We have to be better.’."