The Starke County Sheriff’s Department recently applied for an Indiana Department of Homeland Security grant to help purchase body cameras for the 16 officers, along with the potential purchase of dash cameras and inmate cameras.
Starke County Sheriff’s Department Office Manager Pam McDonald explained that the grant would pay for 25 percent of the cost of the purchase while the county would have to come up with the remaining 75 percent.
Preliminary costs show the total cost to be over $160,000 for just body cameras and over $220,000 for body cameras, dash cameras for the squad cars, and dash cameras for the squad cars.
Currently, the officers do not have either body cameras or dash cameras.
Sheriff Bill Dulin said there is more of a push to get these cameras through police reform.
“They’re pushing for body cameras and accountability, if you will,” stated Dulin. “Basically, what they’re going to do is – they’re allowing us to go this route with grants before it’s mandated and the county has to end up paying for it.”
The council approved a motion to allow the Sheriff’s Department to move forward in obtaining the grant. They will continue to work with Dulin and McDonald to see what funds can be contributed toward the grant match. Initial conversations would be that some funds would come from Jail CEDIT, but nothing has been decided.
