Worcester Council OKs 5-Year Contract For Police Body Cameras

WORCESTER, MA — An effort to outfit hundreds of Worcester police officers with body cameras reached a key milestone on Tuesday when city councilors approved a contract with a bodycam manufacturer to buy the devices.

The unanimous vote on Tuesday will allow Worcester to enter into a five-year contract with Seattle-based Axon, the leading maker of Taser weapons and bodycams. The company will provide about 300 bodycams and Tasers — Axon sells the items as a package — for just under $4 million. Councilors earlier this spring approved putting $1.5 million toward the total cost, and Worcester has also received a $250,000 state grant for the equipment.

One key piece of the bodycam program is still missing, however. Councilors had asked the department to provide a final bodycam policy ahead of the contract approval, but the document wasn't complete as of Tuesday.

At the April 26 city council meeting, At-Large Councilor Thu Nguyen asked to hold the contract approval for one week to allow police to finish the bodycam policy. This week, councilors Khrystian King and Etel Haxhiaj both highlighted that they were still eager to see at least a timeline for when the policy would be complete.

The city has been testing and holding public hearings over bodycam for years. Worcester police conducted a six-month bodycam test in 2019, but it wasn't until 2020 amid nationwide civil unrest over police violence that councilors began pushing for permanent bodycams.

In the nearly two years since, the city has held a series of listening sessions through the Human Rights Commission, probing issues like privacy and who will have access to the videos. The department has also negotiated with police unions over the devices.

Worcester police could begin wearing bodycams by September after a training period this summer, City Manager Ed Augustus Jr. has said. Worcester will be the third big city in Massachusetts to adopt bodycams after Springfield and Boston.