FULLERTON – Four years ago, Fullerton made national headlines when surveillance video captured a controversial run-in between local police and a homeless man, Kelly Thomas, who later died.

This month, the Fullerton Police Department became the first agency in Orange County to outfit every field officer with a body camera.

How that transition happened – and why it’s happening in departments around in the county and elsewhere – tells a story about the future of policing.

FOCUS ON MONEY

In one sense, Fullerton PD’s new body cameras aren’t cheap.

The department is spending $650,354 on the 140 cameras from Taser International. That money covers upgrades, video storage and software for five years.

But Fullerton Police Chief Dan Hughes, who grew up in town and became the city’s top cop the year after the Thomas incident, sought out the cameras.

The camera, Hughes said, provides an unbiased visual record.

“It protects our officers from false allegations,” he said.

“I think it also provides a mechanism to conduct audits of the performance of an officer.”

It’s too soon to say what will happen in Fullerton, but in other communities body cameras on police have paid off.

In Rialto, some police started wearing body cameras in 2012. One result was a striking decline in conflict involving cops and civilians. Complaints against police fell 88 percent and use of force dropped by half, according to a report issued by the Police Foundation, a nonpartisan group that tracks trends in policing.

Less conflict could mean less money paid out by police departments in civil courts and settlements.

But that’s just the start of the change.

Cameras, according to Hughes, might become key in shaping department policy or training.

“It’s just one tool,” he said, “but it’s a very important tool.”

FUTURE ARRIVES

Body cameras on cops have been in the discussion stage for years, but the idea was kick-started into reality last summer when violence erupted in Ferguson, Mo., following the shooting of a black man by a white police officer.

Post Ferguson, body cameras became a hot topic nationally. In December, the White House proposed spending $263 million to help police agencies arm themselves with cameras.

But Fullerton, among others, wasn’t waiting.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it will use the cameras force-wide. Anaheim intends to have its officers outfitted with cameras by April 1. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is testing them now.

And late last year, in Ferguson, 30 of 54 police began wearing cameras.

A spokesman for that agency, Jeff Small, said the force is fine-tuning its video policy, consulting police chiefs around the country, to sort out how the cameras should be used.

Michael Gennaco, a former federal prosecutor turned use-of-force consultant for many police agencies (including Fullerton and LAPD) says the key to body cameras is solid policy.

Fullerton hired Gennaco to investigate the Thomas death. In the end, the department fired three officers even though none of them were convicted of any crime.

“It will help assess police and citizen encounters,” Gennaco said. “Oftentimes, in a he-said, he-said situation, it will help determine who is correct.

“The devil is in the details,” Gennaco said, adding that some agencies don’t have clearly-stated policies for the use of cameras and that lack of direction “defeats the whole purpose.”

CAMERAS ROLLING

For the police themselves, body cameras aren’t about theories on policing; they’re devices that can record every moment of their work day.

Before Fullerton Officer Tim Gibert rolls out to start his 3 p.m.-to-3-a.m. shift, he grabs a video camera from its docking station and clips the device, the size of a deck of cards, to the front of his uniform – chest high.

The 27-year-old officer speaks into the camera, saying his name and time of day. After that, everything on the shift’s recording will be tied to him.

Within the first two hours of his shift, Gibert stopped a car missing a license plate, dealt with a man passed out on the front lawn of a home, and arrested a minor for driving without a license, having tobacco products and a graffiti tool.

The camera caught it all.

At shift’s end, Gibert inserts the camera back into the docking station, where it re-charges and all video recordings are downloaded.

“Overall, I think it’s way more beneficial than the digital-audio recorders (that used to be worn by Fullerton police) in going back and reviewing any incident I have,” said Gibert as he cruised toward west Fullerton.

“They are a good thing to have.”

Fullerton’s Hughes said he crafted his department’s policy based on the camera policies at 50 other agencies. He wants to make it clear when an officer must create a video record.

“I haven’t found a policy yet that is perfect,” the chief said. “Our policy is not a perfect policy. (But) I like it better than what I’ve seen.”

In Fullerton, the cameras are always on, but not always recording. When an officer presses a button on a body camera, the device goes back and records the previous 30 seconds and keeps rolling, similar to how some DVR devices on home televisions can capture previous action.

Generally, officers must have their cameras recording any time they come in contact with anyone. And they must immediately press the button when they go Code Three – when the squad car’s lights and siren are flipped on – or when they have reason to believe they are headed into a major event.

Fullerton’s policy also spells out when the cameras shouldn’t record, and gives police limited discretion in turning the camera around or in their pocket.

That includes any time they’re interviewing victims of sexual assault or child abuse; when they’re talking police tactics with other officers, and when an informant or someone else requests that the camera be turned off.

“We don’t want to do something that will make people reluctant to call police,” Hughes said.

The Fullerton Police Officers’ Association, the union representing Fullerton officers, is generally supportive of the cameras and the policy, said Cpl. Stewart Hamilton, the association president and a 16-year veteran of the force.

“I have not gotten any negative feedback from the officers,” Hamilton said.

However, officers should not be so preoccupied with their cameras and how they’re being used that it slows or alters their response during action. “Officer safety is No. 1,” Hamilton said.

In most situations, Fullerton’s policy allows officers to view their videos. But in certain incidents – such as officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths or encounters that result in a major injury to a member of the public – only the chief or a division commander gets first view of the video.

WHAT THE CAMERA CAN’T SEE

It is too early to determine how body cameras will affect investigations and lawsuits.

They eventually could produce some evidence to help convict criminals in court, but they’re too new to have done that yet in Orange County, said Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Of course, video from cell phones and other sources is not new to court rooms.

Brian Gurwitz, a criminal defense attorney in Tustin and a former deputy district attorney, said body-worn cameras are, “without question, the most important thing” to keep police and the public honest.

“When there is a recording, then the judge has the opportunity to hear (and see) what really happened, which is so often different with what the police have in their report,” Gurwitz said. The attorney represented Kelly Thomas’ mother in negotiating a $1 million settlement from Fullerton following the homeless man’s death after his encounter with police.

“A lot of times what happens is that when you have recordings, it shows subtleties that are critical, that might not have been remembered,” Gurwitz added.

Hughes, the Fullerton chief, stressed that body-camera video is only a partial answer to assessing police encounters. The camera’s eye, he said, can’t provide context.

Critically, he said, a camera can’t capture an officer’s state of mind.

“What is on video is not indicative of everything.”

Contact the writer: 714-704-3730 or lponsi@ocregister.com