On Tuesday, March 9, the Irvine City Council unanimously approved a $3.3 million contract with Axon Enterprises, Inc. for body-worn camera and mobile video system solutions for the Irvine Police Department that will come out of the city’s $98 million police fund.

Of the $3.3 million, 10% – or approximately $300,000 – will be set aside for a contingency fund should any issues arise.

In addition to the physical technology that will include the body-worn and patrol vehicle integrated cameras, the city requires a Digital Evidence Management Software that will store all the recorded data. IPD will also integrate Axon video surveillance into its interview rooms.

In a presentation to the Irvine City Council on Tuesday, March 9, Irvine Police Chief Mike Hamel explained the contract will be paid over the next five years.

Currently, in the “contract award” phase of the project plan, the council’s recent approval gives IPD the green light to move forward, with the physical deployment of the cameras happening between June and September.

“We’ll move into the system configuration and training phase that will take place in April or May, also in the beginning part of May we expect to take delivery of the actual cameras and we are expecting deployment to be around the turn of the fiscal year,” Hamel said during his presentation.

Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan is supportive of the investment. Khan, who has just surpassed 100 days as mayor in March, said she spoke with community organizations prior to being elected mayor, adding that her discussions within the community resulted in positive feedback for the idea of police wearing body cameras.

“Right after the Black Lives Matter protests that happened in our city, I actually held roundtable discussions with many of our Black community members. We had meetings with over 40-45 people,” Khan explained. “One of the first meetings we had – with our police chief in attendance – one of the requests was to initiate body cams.”

However, on Tuesday, March 9, that support was largely vacant from the council’s public comment and e-comments on the agenda item.

In fact, of the six speakers who called in to comment, all said they opposed the item. Of the four e-comments, two opposed the body-worn camera program, and one remained neutral.

Other than the City Council members, there was only one e-commenter that voiced support for IPD’s body-worn camera program.

One of the half-dozen callers, Sylvester Ani, voiced his disapproval for the investment during public comments on March 9. Ani emphasized that body cameras do not actively prevent crime.

“With these body cameras, we’re again continuing to over-invest in this system of policing, which doesn’t prevent crime,” Ani explained over the phone. “Part of what people don’t see – what police do – is not only the violence that you see when talking about situations like George Floyd around the world, but it’s the resources that they sack from the community that’s also violent. Now, that might be the sensationalized violence you see when someone breaks into a store, or if someone has a knee or their neck, it might not be that type of violence, but then it deprives the community of the resources they need to thrive.”

While IPD has used dash-cams in police cruisers for the last three decades, in terms of wearable technology, Irvine is behind other police departments in Orange County cities, like Huntington Beach and Santa Ana.

In the request for council action, filed by Irvine’s Director of Human Resources, and Hamel, the analysis conducted by IPD indicates more than 50% of Orange County police officers wear body-worn cameras.

“Currently in Orange County, over 70% of law enforcement agencies have already implemented, or are in the process of implementing, [body-worn camera] programs.”

The analysis also provides references for Axon’s services, which were submitted by Burbank Police Department, the Garden Grove Police Department and the Santa Monica Police Department.

As part of the March 9 presentation to the council, Jade Mazzio, business services manager for IPD, gave a more detailed look at the features associated with IPDs new surveillance technology.

Mazzio explained that the new body-worn cameras will function in tandem with the officer’s taser, meaning that once the taser is removed from its holster, it will activate the officer’s front-facing body-worn camera.

However, the removal of the officer’s firearm will not activate the camera. Rather, the officer will need to manually activate the camera by pressing a button.

“The taser will automatically activate the body-worn camera. When the firearm is drawn it will not automatically activate the body-worn camera,” Mazzio said. “We did explore adding a piece of hardware equipment to the holster of the firearm that would potentially activate the body-worn camera on a firearm draw, but we did check references on that piece of technology and there were issues with the technology that we felt need a little more development before we would like to implement it here.”

In an email to Irvine Weekly, Sergeant Karie Davies, who works within IPD’s Office Of Public Relations, said the installment of cameras will likely happen in July.

“Chief gave an approximate rollout date of April/May for officers to be trained on the system and the policy with a projected date of July for field personnel to go live with them,” Davies wrote. “These dates are approximate and could change. We will put the policy on our website once the system is live, if not before.”

Currently, IPD’s policy 438.6, regarding the release of video images gathered by public safety officers, states that the images and videos are for the “official use of the Irvine Police Department.” The policy, which was updated in December 2020, states that requests for the video surveillance footage will follow the same protocol as a request for public records:

“Requests for recorded video images from the public or the media shall be processed in the same manner as requests for department public records. Requests for recorded images from other law enforcement agencies shall be referred to the watch commander for release in accordance with a specific and legitimate law enforcement purpose. Recorded video images that are the subject of a court order or subpoena shall be processed in accordance with the established department subpoena process.” — Public Safety Video Surveillance System, Policy 438.6

It is unclear how this policy will change with the implementation of Axon services.

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