The Jefferson Police Department received a high dollar grant to purchase necessary upgrades to equipment that have greatly improved how they do their jobs.

Captain Jason Kroeger tells Raccoon Valley Radio he applied for and was awarded a $40,000 competitive grant from Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation earlier this year to purchase new body and patrol vehicle cameras, as well as software upgrades and increased storage for the batteries from the distributor, Caltech. He notes that the total cost was $56,000, with the city fulfilling the rest as a match to the grant. Kroeger points out that their other equipment was about seven to eight years old and the new cameras provide even more clarity and a wider view, as he likens it to upgrading a cell phone.

“They’re camera resolution is far improved compared to the old ones. Like any technology it just keeps moving along and every few years you need to upgrade with it, and sometimes we have ot push it a little farther in law enforcement. And we got a lot of use out of our old ones and it was time for the new ones.”     

Kroeger further illustrates that the new patrol vehicle cameras can also provide four angles, including inside showing both the subject in the backseat and the officer in the front seat, and gives a wider range of view, whereas the body cameras show the officer’s point of view and who they are interacting with. He explains that not only have both sets of cameras been helpful in situations where citizens complain about possible misconduct of an officer of how they treated someone they interacted with, but also in court with the county attorney’s office.

“Because it takes the dryness of my report and it gives it a human spin. You get to see the tears, you get to see the anger, you get to see the happiness, and when you can play all that in court – and people don’t look the same in court as they did on the day, both victim and suspect when it happened – but to be able to play back, ‘This is how they were at the time, and that’s why I reacted,’ it’s a huge benefit at prosecuting the cases.”  

Kroeger thanks Grow Greene County for their assistance with the application process and for awarding the grant, the city of Jefferson for collecting the data that was needed for the grant application, the letters of support from the county attorney’s office, Jefferson Mayor Craig Berry, and the Greene County School District and the high school administration. Check out the resolution and audio of the body cameras with a snippet from a radio interview with Kroeger at KGRA studio in Jefferson, by clicking here.