Marina Del Rey Sheriff's Station Deputies Training For Bodycams

MARINA DEL REY, CA — Sheriff's deputies at the Marina del Rey station are training to wear body cameras, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Tuesday during a live stream community meeting.

The move comes as deputies at different stations across Los Angeles County begin wearing body cameras in the field. Deputies from the Century, Lancaster, Lakewood, Industry and West Hollywood stations were among the first to train and wear the technology back in October, NBC reports.

Deputies who tamper with the body cameras could face serious consequences, Villanueva said.

"The consequences are pretty severe because they're obstructing, falsifying or destroying otherwise what would be an official document and a record of their job," Villanueva said. "There's very specific rules they have to follow. Of course, it's a new technology so there's a grace period of 90 days where they're working into the system. We're doing audits to make sure that they're deploying and using the cameras the way it is intended."

Deputies will record traffic stops and interactions with the public, he said. At the audit, they will measure how successful the body camera deployment has been.

"For failure to do that, there's a one-minute buffer window where they can activate the camera, even if they miss it right when it's going to happen it has one minute of data on it — not audio but video data — on it that can be recalled and successfully saved. So, we're expecting people to use the system the way it's intended."

The department is teaching also supervisors, desk personnel to remind deputies to turn their body cameras on, he said.

"We'll hold them accountable based on the evidence we have when we do an investigation," Villanueva said. "We're at the beginning stage of this process and I think people are embracing the technology pretty well and it's becoming more universally excepted now, and it's more to the benefit of deputies doing their work when their credibility is called into question to have the documentation."

Sheriff's deputies in Marina del Rey are responsible for about 75 miles of coastline in the marina, harbor and Santa Monica Bay, Sheriff's Capt. Chris Johnson of the Marina del Rey Station said.