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Body Cams Mandated for Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Officers

Officers with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency will be required to wear body-worn cameras, joining an increasing number of state and federal law enforcement agencies who police hunting, fishing, and boating laws across the nation that are now required to wear the devices.

Roughly 250 Tennessee officers who routinely interact with the public will be required to wear body cameras, spokesperson Emily Buck said.

The goal of adding cameras is to “promote perceived legitimacy, sense of fairness, and procedural justice the citizens of Tennessee have about TWRA,” read the agency’s grant application to the U.S. Department of Justice, which provided $340,000 start-up funding. 

Body-worn cameras have been adopted by numerous traditional law enforcement agencies over the past decade, but only in recent years put into use by sworn officers with the U.S. Department of Interior, Forest Service, and TWRA counterparts in other states who patrol natural areas.

These officers possess the same authority to question, detain, arrest, search and seize as local police and sheriff’s departments, but they have received far less scrutiny in their interactions with the public, which often take place in rural, forested and other natural areas — including waterways — away from public view.

In Tennessee, allegations about TWRA officer misconduct and abuse of power have surfaced in two recent lawsuits.

State wildlife agency sued over secret surveillance on private land

In April, a panel of state judges, ruling in a lawsuit brought by two Benton County property owners, struck down a state law giving TWRA officers the right to search and surveil private property without a warrant —and without notice to property residents or owners.

The panel called TWRA’s practice of conducting warrantless searches and surveillance “unconstitutional, unlawful, and unenforceable” and giving rise to an “intolerable risk of abusive searches.” No other Tennessee state or local agency is explicitly granted the same powers. TWRA is appealing the decision.  

In July, a master falconer filed a federal lawsuit against three TWRA law enforcement officers, alleging her constitutional rights were violated when they unlawfully seized 13 birds of prey, phone, computer, video, and other records from her Nashville home in 2022 — an action a Nashville criminal court judge later called “egregious,” “an abuse of the law” and “malicious prosecution.” TWRA officials have denied their officers violated the law. 

TWRA is still in the process of implementing body camera usage. Officers have received training and are currently being outfitted with the video and audio capturing devices, Buck said. The DOJ grant covers less than half the initial three-year startup costs of cameras, she said.

All full-time wildlife officers, sergeants, and lieutenants will be issued cameras, which must be activated to record all vehicle and vessel stops, pursuits, calls for service, “detentions, investigations pursuant to an arrest, arrests, suspect interviews,” searches of individuals and during the execution of search warrants — among other circumstances detailed in protocol provided by TWRA.

The protocol provides for exceptions to the requirement to record, including in restrooms or other areas where the public has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Among other exceptions: audio may be muted at an officers discretion while conferring with other law enforcement during a law enforcement action or in other circumstances “based on clearly articulable reasons.”

TWRA’s adoption of body worn cameras comes after numerous state and federal wildlife law enforcement agency have begun requiring them.

In 2019, the United States Forest Service began requiring its officers to wear the cameras. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Interior began requiring its officers to use them, a policy that extends to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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Police Body Camera Rollout Delayed

The rollout of body cameras for every Memphis Police officer has been pushed back indefinitely, a decision announced by Mayor Jim Strickland at a Friday afternoon press conference.

Back in September, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong announced that 2,000 cameras would be deployed and operational by the end of 2015. He said 50 officers a day were being trained to use them.

But today, Strickland said his office felt it necessary to delay their deployment until the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office can update their technology to deal with the data that will be coming from the cameras. He also said city government would need additional manpower to handle public records requests for camera footage.

“I’d rather do the right thing than do the fast thing,” Strickland said.

Armstrong told those at the press conference today that the police department would also need more staff to screen and redact information from the videos.

“Someone has to sit down and view all of that video. It’s labor-intensive, and information has to be redacted so citizens’ private information doesn’t go public,” Armstrong said.

Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said her office wasn’t given advance notice by Mayor A C Wharton’s administration about his 2015 deadline for getting the cameras operational.

“No one in my office had been trained [on what to do with the footage] before the announcement was made [last September],” Weirich said.

She said the police camera footage was “evidence, not entertainment” and that the contents would need to be handled carefully.

Strickland said he does support body cameras and said he voted for them when he was a Memphis City Councilmember. But he implied the previous administration rushed the deployment of cameras.

“I can’t speak to what happened before January 1st, but I think people were overly optimistic,” Strickland said.

Strickland would not speculate on when the city would be ready to roll out cameras.

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Memphis Police Get Body Cameras

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong announced that 500 officers will soon begin wearing body cameras. 

The announcement came at a press conference at the MPD’s Real Time Crime Center. Armstrong said that 50 officers are being trained with the cameras each day, and by early October, 500 officers will be using the cameras. By the end of the year, they should have 2,000 cameras deployed and operational. Every officer will have a camera assigned to him or her, Armstrong said.

The body cameras have been discussed for quite some time, but Mayor A C Wharton, who spoke at the conference, said the city was on target with its goal of outfitting officers with cameras.

“In spite of the fact that we’ve had some of the roughest periods, especially with loss of Officer Bolton, there have been quite a few questions about whether we have fallen behind,” Wharton said.

But he maintains the process is on-track. He said it simply takes awhile to get the technology up and running.

“This is not simply about placing a gadget on the lapel of each officer. It’s much more than that, with all the aspects of technology,” Wharton said.

Armstrong also said that in-car video has been installed in five squad cars, and four more cars will have cameras by October 1st. He said there will be cameras in more than 400 vehicles by January 2016.

Wharton pointed out that crime in Memphis is on the decrease with major violent crimes down 20 percent from 2006, when the county’s Operation Safe Community initiative was launched.