Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Tuesday that the city has picked Taser International to provide police body cameras and cloud storage services.
The choice comes after a two-month pilot program in which police tested cameras from three vendors that had submitted technical bids. The model chosen - the Taser Axon body camera - was tested in the Western District.
It is unclear how much the cameras will cost because the Board of Estimates won’t open bids until midday Wednesday. City officials also would not say how much was set aside to purchase the cameras.
Tim Krus, chief of the Bureau of Purchases, said only an “adequate amount” was budgeted. “We prefer not to get into exact numbers for that at this point in time.”
Rawlings-Blake said she hopes to have a contract with Taser by the end of February.
The mayor, who vetoed a City Council proposal in 2014 requiring officers to wear body cameras, also took time to address critics of her veto and reiterate her support for body cameras.
Rawlings-Blake said outfitting officers in the eighth largest police department in the country with body cameras is “far more complex than simply going down the street to Radio Shack and grabbing cameras off the shelf.”
“Anyone who thinks it’s that easy or could be that easy has never worked in high levels of government or they never had the responsibility of making multi-million dollar decisions,” she added.
The mayor also said she wanted to make sure Baltimore avoided “a boondoggle.”