Body cameras now help record complete accounts

Batesville Deputy Police Chief Jimmy McCloud covered a myriad of police-related subjects during remarks to Wednesday’s meeting of the Exchange Club, body cameras among them.
“Body cameras are the best thing in the world,” McCloud said. “That’s the best money that I’ve seen spent in the Batesville Police Deparment since I’ve been working here. They have saved us on numerous occasions.”
The police administrator said that when the department bought its first cameras, officers were reluctant. “They didn’t want them. We couldn’t afford to buy them all at once, but after a couple of months, they were coming to us, (asking) ‘Hey, when am I going to get mine?’”
“When people call and complain,” McCloud continued, “I tell them to come watch the video. Most of them don’t show up at that point.”
Batesville officers, as part of their standard operating procedure, now turn their cameras on when they arrive at the scene of a complaint and leave it recording video and audio until the incident has been resolved.
“When you see that three-second clip on TV and not the hour video and you don’t know what that officer did or has gone through from the time his shift started,” he continued.
“We’re policing in some hard times,” McCloud said.
McCloud asked for empathy for officers, especially young officers. “They have the same issues in their lives that we have every day,” McCloud said. “You wake up and your kid’s sick or you wake up and you’ve got a flat on your car or you go to get in the truck to come to work and the gas light is on.
“The difference is that we’re held to a higher standard, and we should be. But a lot of the stuff we deal with will put you on edge.”
McCloud then recalled the encounters that officers on one shift faced recently, starting with the report of a toddler wandering in the highway. The child bore marks of abuse that brought tears to officers’ eyes, he said.
That was followed by a fatal auto accident where first responders found the victim trapped but still alive. However, as they worked to cut the victim free, she died. Later, the officers were called to an accident in I-55 that resulted in two more fatalities.
A few days afterwards, officers responded to a fatal shooting scene and then to a traumatic death in a home, McCloud said.
“I tell you those things to say, that’s stressful, and their cup starts getting full.”