Police to buy Taser cameras

Attention criminals of Las Vegas: If you find yourself at the end of a police Taser, remember to smile. You could be on camera.

The Metropolitan Police Department will soon add 600 Taser cameras that will record audio and video of the often-volatile confrontations between suspects and officers using the electric stun guns. "Now you can see what our officers face," said officer Marcus Martin, who coordinates the Police Department's electronic control device program.

The cameras will be purchased with a $240,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, and the department is looking for ways to buy hundreds more for the rest of the 2,300 police and corrections officers authorized to carry the weapon.

North Las Vegas and Henderson police are testing the cameras but have no immediate plans to implement them throughout their departments.

The Taser Cams fit into the butts of the current Tasers used by Las Vegas police.

They record audio and high-resolution black-and-white video whenever the safety is off. Each holds 90 minutes of video, which can be downloaded to a computer.

The agency tested 80 Taser Cams before applying for the grant. The new cameras should be on the street by the end of the year.

Police Department leaders believe the videos will give the public a better understanding of how and why officers use the weapons, which critics have blamed for nearly 300 deaths nationally.

"Our sheriff is under the opinion that this agency is an open book," said officer Ramon Denby, a department spokesman.

Las Vegas police fired their Tasers 458 times last year, and officer injuries have fallen 54 percent since the department started using Tasers in 2003, Denby said.

Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, applauded the addition of cameras. But, he cautioned, the Department could undermine public confidence it hopes to bolster if it doesn't publicly release the videos upon request.

"If the department says its officers are using this weapons in a professional way, they should have no problem releasing these recordings," Peck said.

Department lawyers were drafting a policy for releasing the Taser videos, Denby said.

Peck said the agency needs a strict policy that prevents Taser use as a compliance tool.

Police say they shoot people with Tasers in reaction to the suspects' actions, and the new cameras will show that.

"It's not a he said-she said situation," Denby said. "It's here's how the suspect acted and here's what the police did."

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0281.