City of Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow announced on Oct. 25 that the Oswego City Police Department has donated used body cameras to the SUNY Oswego Police Department.

This comes as an attempt by the city to assist in the gradual expansion of the SUNY Police Department’s line of body cameras. Currently, the SUNY Oswego Police Department is in the process of upgrading their body camera system and the donated cameras will be used until the upgrade is scheduled to be completed. The department’s Administrative Lieutenant Matthew Barbeau explained that the upgrade was needed for several reasons.

“Our contract with the vendor who provided the first body cameras that we had expired and then we had an issue with the server on our side,” Barbeau said. “[We] made a decision on going to a different product, which we’ve been in the process of doing, we’re just waiting on some grant information from the state.”

Barbeau explained that the problems with the server made it harder to transfer data with the body cameras. The donated equipment that the SUNY Oswego Police Department are receiving from city police will help with this issue as well as provide an easy transition to the cameras they will get once their official upgrade is complete.

“The cameras we’re getting from them [are] going to be the same brand that we’re going to be going to, but obviously an upgraded model, a newer model,” Barbeau said. “So it’ll help when we finally do receive our new cameras it’ll make the transition seamless.”

In a news release, Barlow touted the importance of collaboration between the city and university police departments.

“Donating our used body cameras to SUNY PD is a great display of support and cooperation between two local law enforcement agencies and ensures the safety of all police officers and members of the public throughout Oswego,” Barlow said.

Barbeau explained that the city police department and SUNY Oswego’s police department already have a good relationship and this is just another collaborative project that strengthens the bond between the two. He also believes that the two departments working together, especially in a college town, is imperative.

“I like to think that we have a really good relationship with the city police department,” Barbeau said. “Obviously, we’re so close in proximity, they deal with our college students quite a bit for various reasons because we have a [large] population that lives in the city of Oswego while they’re attending classes here and we’ve worked with them in the past on different things such as DWI roadblocks or checkpoints and any time if we have to go into the city for a certain reason we call them for assistance. We’ve backed them up on calls before when they’ve called us, when they need an extra officer to assist them with any number of factors.”

In regards to the community reaction, Barbeau does not believe there will be any surprises or outcry following the upgrade. He cited the fact that the SUNY Oswego Police Department has been using body cameras for years now as reasoning for his belief.

“I think a lot of people know that we already carry cameras,” Barbeau said. “We’ve had them since 2019 so it’s not really a major change, we’re just using a different style of camera, so I don’t envision anybody just finding out for the first time.”

SUNY Oswego originally launched their fleet of body cameras for university police officers on Feb 1, 2019. At the time they became the sixth State University force to employ the use of body-worn cameras. Former University Police Chief John Rossi Jr. said that it was important to get body cameras for the university police force to keep up with the times.

“Technology changes, and we do our best to keep up with it, to help us continue to make this a very safe campus,” Rossi Jr. said. “Police body cameras have been an emerging tool to help defuse situations on the civilian side and allowing officers to use less force when necessary.”

The former chief made sure to note that suspects and defense attorneys will have access to the videos or audio files through the Freedom of Information Law so long as legal exemption does not apply.

The donated Oswego City Police Department cameras will be used by the police department at SUNY Oswego throughout the rest of the year and until their upgrade to an even more advanced version is complete in early 2022.

Image via City of Oswego Mayor’s Office