30 Percent of County's Police Dashboard Cameras Don't Work: Report

While the Prince George’s County Police Department considers itself a leader in the use of in-car cameras – having first installed them in 2000 – the department is about to embark on a massive repair project to fix or replace more than a thousand broken units.

According to an internal audit, about 30 percent of Prince George’s County Police Department dashboard cameras in active patrol cars are not working. Out of 1,048 total cameras, 1,317 have hardware or software issues including recording problems, audio issues, playback errors, or they do not turn on, WTOP reports.

The results were released Thursday by Police Chief Mark Magaw, who ordered a review of every patrol car’s camera to see if it works.

“We were among the first in the nation to embrace this technology and we are among only a few agencies in the entire region to have in-car cameras,” Magaw said.
We believe these cameras provide greater transparency to our community and enhance officer safety.”

The camera audit took about a month and wrapped up in late April.

One car that didn’t have an operational camera was that of Police Officer Brennan Rabain, 26, who died in a car crash March 7. Rabain reportedly pursued a speeding car and crashed into a wooden fence in the 9500 block of Greenbelt Road in Lanham.

SEE ALSO: Woman Passenger in Patrol Car During Fatal Crash: Police

PG Police Officer Dies in Overnight Car Crash

Chief: Officer Killed in Crash Had Consumed Alcohol

The department’s goal is to have 100 percent of its patrol cruisers with working camera systems, but due to the high cost of the newer camera system the department will not replace camera systems in older cruisers that will soon be retired. By year’s end, the department is slated to replace older cruisers with 100 new marked cruisers that will come with new Panasonic camera technology.

“If a citizen sees a cruiser with a camera inside, that citizen has the expectation that the camera is working. So do we. If the camera isn’t and can’t be fixed, we are going to soon remove those broken cameras altogether,” said Magaw.