Police Department Presents Plans For Purchases to Oversight Commission

The Pasadena Police Department provided the City’s Police Oversight Commission with a review of a request it plans to make to the Public Safety Committee and the City Council for a new five-year contract with Axon Enterprises.

Under the new contract, the City would enter into two contracts for tasers and body-worn cameras, add three new products and upgrade two products.

The new products would include the Axon Signal Sidearm. The product includes a sensor that attaches to the officer’s firearm and also the holster.

The sensor signals the primary user’s body-worn camera and other nearby cameras within about 20 feet to begin recording once the officer removes his service revolver.

The new cameras would guarantee that cameras are on during critical incidents and provide more transparency after the incidents occur.

In 2022, an officer’s camera was not on during the fatal officer-involved shooting of Anthony McClain near La Pintoresca Park on Raymond Avenue.

State law mandates footage of critical incidents be released no later than 45 days.

If approved, the department would also purchase Axon Performance, a software program that provides analytics and a dashboard of body-worn camera and taser metrics. Those metrics are activations, categorization of recordings, and calls for service and how they’re related, according to Executive Administrator Karen Peterson.

“It provides a platform for the field supervision to identify opportunities for the development,” Peterson said. “If that officer needs development, it provides opportunities for them to look at and add that to their performance evaluations. It also includes a quality assurance module. The system is set up to choose randomized recordings or priority ranked recordings that the department sets for the review process.”

The department would also purchase Axon Respond Plus, a feature that works with the body-worn camera.

The feature enables law enforcement officials to collaborate and make informed decisions by integrating the live location data of the officer or the device, which is through GPS. A real-time alert from an officer or the user’s body-worn camera.

The feature also allows others to view livestream video which could provide a complete picture of an evolving situation, Peterson said.

“That just gives them a better way of communicating what’s actually happening out there on the scene if they’re not there if they happen to be remote,” Peterson said.

The department would also update its body-worn cameras and taser systems. The new cameras provide better optics with an upgraded sensor and a wider field of view.

The department is also looking to purchase three Trakkabeam TL360 Helicopter Searchlights. The searchlights will use LED-style lights and are instant-on and instant-off, allowing them to be turned off once they are no longer needed, reducing light pollution. They can also illuminate an area with infrared (IR) light, allowing the crews to use their night vision goggles to take advantage of the searchlight IR illumination without having to actually project any visible light on the area.