South Fayette police now wearing body cameras

All South Fayette police officers will now wear body cameras when on duty, said the department’s chief.

The 20 police officers have been wearing the cameras since Oct. 14, according to police Chief John Phoennik. The $38,000 move will increase accountability between police and citizens, he said.

“The footage doesn’t always tell the entire story. But it gives you a decent baseline of a portion of what went on. And it adds to the transparency of everything,” Phoennik said.

The cameras, along with a server to store data and training for each officer, were covered by a grant from the federal Bureau of Justice, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The township covered $19,000, or half.

The addition of body cameras comes at a time when tensions between police and the public are high. Protests erupted locally and globally over the summer after the death of George Floyd in May.

More and more police departments nationally are using body cameras. The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows about 80% of large departments with 500 or more full-time officers had body cameras in 2016, according to a bureau 2016 survey. In comparison, only about 31% of small police departments with part-time officers did.

Phoennik said the body cameras will join the dash cams already present in the department’s vehicles. Those were installed around five years ago, he said.

He said the Pennsylvania legislature might soon make police use of body cameras mandatory.

“We’re not blind to what goes on,” he said. “That’s why we try to be ahead of the curve with it. We always need to develop more.”

The entire department underwent implicit bias training in August, he said.

Phoennik, who has served as chief for six years, said he also takes the old-fashioned community policing seriously. The department tries to get out to home owners association meetings monthly to answer questions, hosts events for children throughout the year and Phoennik holds “Coffee with the Chief” events periodically. The informal events are meant to encourage interaction with the chief, he said.