Officers at Mount Vernon police station to get body cameras

Axon will be providing the camera device, software and storage for the police department’s body camera pilot program.

Police officers at the Mount Vernon district station will be getting body cameras this spring, the Fairfax County Police Department announced Tuesday.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously at their meeting Tuesday to approve the department’s pilot program. Mount Vernon is one of two stations that has been picked to take part in a pilot program to study the use of the cameras. 

The department expects all uniformed officers at the Mount Vernon and Mason district stations to begin wearing the cameras in March, after training is completed. The pilot is scheduled to last three months, with the possibility of being extended to six months. The projected cost of the program is $684,151, according to the FCPD.

The department outlined in a press release Tuesday where and when officers will be expected to use, and not use, the cameras:

• Officers are expected to turn on the camera during any law enforcement-public encounter related to a call for service, law enforcement action, subject stop, traffic stop, search, or police service
• Officers will start recording at their arrival/response, or as soon as it is practical to do so, and leave it on for the duration of the incident (including transportation to jail)
• Officers will not record when in courthouses and medical facilities,  unless use of force is anticipated or initiated
• Officers will not record when someone is reporting a crime and has requested anonymity, or if they are giving a statement in an alleged rape or sexual assault

Chief of Police Edwin Roessler told the Board of Supervisors that the department has studied lessons learned from other jurisdictions implementation of cameras, and will try to avoid problems that other departments have run into — including officers not turning on their cameras when appropriate.

“I can assure you as your chief, we will audit the use of the cameras,” Roessler said. “It will be a policy that’s in effect, and officers shall abide by that policy and discipline will happen if they do not abide by that policy.”

Mount Vernon Supervisor Dan Storck, whose district overlaps with most of the area patrolled by the Mount Vernon district station, said it was important that all officers working out of that station be equipped with cameras to avoid the perception of impropriety if a use-of-force incident was not recorded.

“My fear would be that through no fault of anybody that you have an incident and for whatever reason the officer would not have a camera and people would presume and assume the worst,” Storck said.

Roessler said there were enough cameras to equip every officer at the Mount Vernon and Mason stations, but cautioned that because other police stations often respond to incidents in the Mount Vernon district’s area, there was no way to ensure every interaction would be recorded.

The use of body cameras was one of the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission, which was formed in the wake of the 2013 shooting of a John Geer by a Fairfax County Police officer. The officer later pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting Geer, who was unarmed, and the county wound up paying $2.95 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Geer’s family.