The McDonough County Sheriff’s Department and Police Force have begun the process of implementing body cameras, which Sheriff Nick Petitgout calls a very involved process:
“We went and purchased body cameras here a few months ago and just the IT work that goes into having body cameras in your department or office is absolutely incredible. All of the little things really do add up. Our body camera footage will be stored on the cloud and you have to make sure you have the right firewall, bandwidth, all that integration is really key. I hope people don’t think that you just order them and just slap the cameras on their deputies and patrol officers and say here you go. There’s so much more of the policies that go into that, it is absolutely incredible. It is so involved.”
Sheriff Petitgout says total cost for the cameras and storage will be around $250,000.