By Darian Stevenson
syracuse.com
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office will require guards working in the downtown Justice Center jail and Jamesville Correctional Facility to wear body worn cameras.
The department has requested permission from county officials to get 31 cameras, according to Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley. The initial cost of the cameras – about $156,000 – would come out of money left over in the department’s operational budget, he said.
The long-term cost for using the cameras would be $1,082,000 for 10 years, said Tom Newton, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.
Shelley said before he took office, there was a plan to equip body cameras to deputies in the jails.
“It was in discussion then, but, you know, body cameras are going in stages” Shelley said.
In June 2022, all sheriff’s office road patrol deputies were equipped with body cameras. A contract for the body worn cameras was awarded to Axon Enterprise, an Arizona -based company that develops technology and weapons products for military, law enforcement and civilians.
The new body cameras will come from the same company, Newton said.
Shelley said the five cameras will go to the department’s Civil Division, nine cameras will go to Jamesville prison and 17 cameras will be shared by deputies in the Justice Center jail.
Body cameras will be shared amongst deputies that work in transport, booking and the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT), deputies who respond to emergency situations involving inmates.
Shelley said the need for the cameras is to hold deputies and inmates accountable.
“You could argue there’s two sides to every story, but now there’s three sides, and you have a body camera,” Shelley said. “We don’t fear the truth.”
He said incidents — such as the one in January when inmate Ozell Stanley got into an altercation with a deputy inside his cell — would “end before it starts” with body cameras. The deputy involved was later cleared of wrongdoing following an internal investigation.
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