(AUSTELL, Ga.) — The Austell City Council has approved the purchase of new in-car and body cameras for the city’s police force.
“The officers were basically patrolling with outdated equipment,” Austell Police Chief Scott Hamilton told WSB’s Jonathan O’Brien. “That, of course, is totally unacceptable...to me, we were just basically having our officers out there unprotected.”
Hamilton, a veteran of the Cobb County Police Department, became chief in August of 2022. “One of the things that I recognized immediately was a lot of our technology within the police department was very antiquated,” he explained.
Hamilton noted that the old system was slow and required officers to download footage onto DVDs.
“It was just a no-brainer that we needed to come into the 21st century where we could have unlimited storage,” he said.
The new cameras, made by Axon, use cloud-based software to store the footage. Other departments around the metro also use the equipment.
Hamilton said the body cameras will cost $30,000 a year under a five-year contract; the in-car cameras are $69,000 annually. The department expects the body cameras to arrive in the next couple of weeks, but the in-car cameras will be available at the end of the year.
Chief Hamilton believes quality camera equipment protects officers and the public, “When you’ve got that camera on, it’s going to tell the truth; the camera doesn’t lie.”