Saturday, June 26, 2021

The Mystery of the Missing Bodycams.

Once upon a time in the waning days of his reign, the Sheriff of Hinds County sought to protect his valiant charges and acquired a collection of 60 bodycameras.  However, the new Sheriff was not as enlightened and instead sought to hide his force in darkness. He cast the bodycameras into the black hole that is Hinds County where they would hopefully would disappear from memory (and the county books) forever.  

Sheriff Tyrone Lewis purchased sixty body cameras with asset forfeiture funds for $18,000 in 2015.  He purchased a server for $12,000 as well to avoid the expensive cloud storage fees that plague many police departments.  The purchase orders are posted below.   The Sheriff created a policy manual for the use of the bodycameras.  The Board of Supervisors approved it in the fall of 2015.

 

Sheriff Lewis lost his re-election bid to Victor Mason.  One of the first things Sheriff Mason and his  minions did was put the bodycameras in cold storage.  

The bodycameras collected dust until the Sheriff lost to Lee Vance in 2019.  Sheriff Mason could have left well enough alone but instead engaged in a bit of sabotage.  

The beaten Sheriff transferred the bodycams to the  Hinds County Inventory Surplus Department.  Yours truly submitted a public records request for several records:

 

1. Copy of all records of the sale of body cameras purchased by the Hinds County Sheriff's office in 2015. The purchase order is attached.

2. Copy of all records of the transfer of the body cameras from the Sheriff's Department to any other department such as Inventory or surplus.

3. Copy of all public notices or ads placed for the purpose of the sale of the body cameras.
Hinds County would only provide a copy of the inventory report that is posted below. However, the report lists only 53 bodycams instead of the sixty that were purchased.  The Sheriff's office said it did not have possession of the bodycameras in questions.  
 
Hinds County still has not provided any records showing the sale of the bodycameras.  Director of Administration Stephen Hopkins stated in an email: 
 
 If I am not mistaken, these bodycams were not sold but were transferred from the Sheriff's Department Inventory to County Inventory Surplus. 

However, no one can seem to find the bodycams and several sources said they were indeed sold.   

So, where are the bodycameras? Does the county still possess them? Were they sold? What happened to the seven body cameras not listed in surplus?  Inquiring minds want to know. 


21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Less bodycams more bullets on the scum that "run" da skreetz. I can go with that.

Anonymous said...

Smells like ass in here

Anonymous said...

I would be interested to know which brand bodycam they are. If they are Axon then they are valuable. If they are some PRC knock off glitchy repackaged "wildlife" cameras with a belt clip glued to the back, they are garbage. Then they top it off with a bottom of the barrel storage solution for the videos. Lately, law enforcement in Mississippi has chosen the later.

Anonymous said...

Hey Shaaaaaaad! KF found you a new sandbox.

Anonymous said...

I suppose it's too much to expect, in a city where the streets are cratered like something in a post-apocalyptic movie, where neither water supply nor water billing work, where people wonder whether or not to bother with calling 911, and where half the PoPo seem to think that their job description includes servicing teenage girls - in the back seats of their police cars, for there to be working bodycams on those policemen.

Anonymous said...

@4:10p- I get what you’re trying to say, but this is about the Hinds County SO, not JPD.

Spooner For Sherruf And Stuff said...

Maybe they had a 'Bennie Quality' fish fry with the proceeds from the sale. You don't track that kinda stuff. Errybody knows this.

Anonymous said...

4:37, and Hinds County SO is supposed to soon be coming to the rescue of Jackson. Ditto re Shad's next sandbox. If supervisors can go to jail over putting a culvert in someone's driveway (remember Operation Pretense) someone(s) need to become an inmate over this.

Anonymous said...

Pete Luke was in charge during the disgraceful Mason administration and he is still there. Simple enough, ask him.

Anonymous said...

Deppity Pheel could git-r-dun!

It would cost mightily tho!

Kingfish said...

Nah, he is too busy fighting medical marijuana while his daughter pushes it for her clients. Right Joey?

Anonymous said...

Leastways no one is suggesting E&O insurance will cover the missing cams.

Either someone was careless and lost 'em, or someone was crooked and stole 'em. Or maybe someone was careless and some unknown yute stole 'em to make tiktok and youtube uploads of their crew's latest releases!

Anonymous said...

Whose daughter is pushing Marijuana for her clients? Cryptic as usual. Shad or get off the pot, Kingfish.

Anonymous said...

Operation Pretense! Great topic idea KF , some of those old bastards are still around to make em feel uncomfortable, including target #1

Anonymous said...

Settle down, KF. It would be immoral for Deputy Phil to prosper from both sides of the medical marijuana argument.

Anonymous said...

Ward, don't you think you're being a bit hard on the Beav...er, Shadler...

Say what you will but Ms. Billingsly could translate the jive.

Anonymous said...

Body cams protect the police and protect citizens from the few who abuse their authority.

I'm more concerned that they weren't used and when they are available, mysteriously not turned on.

Find with holding those who took them accountable and if the ones found work, they ought to be put to use.

And don’t call me Shirley said...

12:51 AM for the win!

Anonymous said...

The amount of 'toys' bought by law enforcement and then either 'lost' or not used (and then the cycle repeats ad-infinitum) would absolutely SHOCK the average taxpayer.

Kingfish said...

It's amazing how many fall off the truck.

Anonymous said...

I was at the department when they got those body cameras. They were so cheap they never worked from the get-go. It was only done so administration could get on the news and announce that they had body cameras. They were the cheapest things you could buy with batteries that lasted about 30 mins and charging took hours. As someone said it was like they took the cheapest dollar store wildlife camera and glued a belt clip to it. If you were on a call or had a situation that was over 30 minutes then you weren't getting it all on the camera. The website they were sold on was bodycameras.com and the cameras didn't even have software to help take the video off the camera - as if the camera worked long enough to take video. I remember the IT guy they had there at the time trying over and over again to convince them to go with Axon and get the cloud storage so they had something that worked and lasted but Lewis wanted his publicity as cheaply as possible so they ordered crap.

who thinks they bought 60 anywhere near decent body cameras for $18,000 is an idiot and has never even held one of those things. 60 cameras from Axon with storage is a couple hundred thousand easy. Hell, I remember they were so cheaply made one deputy had his fall off his belt and it broke in half when it hit the concrete. So there goes one of those unaccounted for cameras right there as it would have been given to the county before the others. County property department is never known for keeping up with anything and the only records usually kept were from the SO which is required to keep up with the property until it is turned back over to the county. At that point they can't track it so it is the county responsibility.

You paying a finder's fee for info on how they were sold?


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