UMW PD to acquire body cameras next year

by SAMUEL HUXSOLL

Staff Writer

The University of Mary Washington Department of Police and Public Safety is in the process of obtaining body cameras for officers when on patrol. According to Chief of Police Michael Hall, the Department hopes cameras will be deployed by summertime and fully operational for the Fall 2025 semester.

“All the agencies around us have body cameras, especially our colleagues here in the City of Fredericksburg, and in essence, that body camera will be the same that their officers are using currently,” said Hall.

The conversation surrounding the implementation of body cameras had been ongoing long before Hall stepped into his role leading the Department in 2014, he said, but after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, there were widespread calls to mandate usage by all police officers. Now, after negotiating contracts and funding with the Commonwealth of Virginia, UMW is formally adopting a body camera policy.

“There has been more of a push from the university community,” Hall said. “A lot of the students talking about ‘I said this,’ ‘they said that,’ so more transparency. It’s a growing trend across the nation for more transparency when something goes wrong.”

Although the specifics of the policy are not finalized, it will adhere to standards set by the Commonwealth. This includes automatic activation when emergency lights are turned on and when the firearm is removed from its holster. Officers would then be able to turn off their body cameras once the issue is resolved.

“If a situation elevates or becomes a situation that could be confrontational or anything of this nature, or shifts out of a casual conversation to a more pointed conversation, those would be the things that dictate where they go,” said Hall.

Students like senior biology major Jada Butler are supportive of UMW PD’s use of body cameras and say that the policy will provide greater accountability.

“It makes me feel safer to know that the cameras are there, and they can be used for justice,” said Butler.

Senior computer science and political science major Luke Busch agrees that the change is a step in the right direction and will benefit the campus community, but believes there is still more work to be done to improve relations between police and students in the wake of the arrests of nine students in last year’s encampment in solidarity with Palestine.

“I think the UMW Police’s complicity and involvement in the removal of the encampment last year and the charging of students for exercising their rights set us back a long way,” Busch said. “UMW Police have a lot of work to do to prove they actually have the interests of the students at heart.”

Junior political science major Alden Friend supports the change in theory but is worried that this will send a message to students that UMW PD has their interests at heart, which he believes they do not.

“Those who trust the police will not be moved to trust them less. Those who do not will not be moved to trust them more. The lines are drawn. ,” he said.

While many students expressed their support for the body cameras, Hall emphasized the need for a human-based approach to policing instead of solely relying on recordings from cameras.

“Community-based policing—which has been the bedrock of this department under my administration—is interaction with the community we serve, having conversations, not yelling and screaming at each other,” he said.

UMW PD intends for the presence of body cameras to provide a clear depiction of potentially hostile situations and provide greater transparency to the community.

“That’s the intent of the cameras, it is to be more transparent when things happen so that if it’s a criminal situation, both sides get to actually see what’s going on at the present time.”

UMW Police showed optimism that these changes would result in not only more transparency but would serve as a deterrent to future crime.

“Cameras, they don’t build trust. People build trust. Cameras solidify things in the moment,” Hall said.

The University has been working through the procurement process for several months and is now nearing the final stages of approval, according to Hall.

“We’ve been evaluating for over a year now and just before Winter Break we thought we had finalized the deal but there was a procurement hiccup and so they are working through legal issues right now and the language for the purchase of those body cameras,” he said.

UMW PD and the greater student body see the implementation of body cameras as an opportunity for better community connection, increased accountability and trust.

“If the officers are shown to be honest, trustworthy and caring towards the community while upholding the law, then I believe that this will lead to more trust in the police department,” said Butler.