The Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) bought an in-car camera system last year for one of its vehicles but now requires almost $9,000 more after it forgot to purchase an accessory laptop.
The Board of Police Commissioners authorized the organization to purchase a Panasonic camera in 2020 and install it in a marked F-150 police truck to replace an old Watch Guard Camera that quit functioning, a board report explained. However, the MJPS realized it also required a Panasonic Toughbook laptop to power and work with the new system, which is important “to record evidence, provide transparency and enhance safety.”
During the recent police board meeting, the police service approached the commissioners with cap in hand to ask for $8,992.77 to purchase the laptop. After some discussion, the commissioners unanimously approved the request.
“This is a mea culpa on our part,” said Police Chief Rick Bourassa. “We just missed adding this into our budget earlier … . We do our best, but we don’t always get those IT components correct.”
Supt. Devon Oleniuk accepted responsibility for the oversight, saying when he wrote the report in November asking for the new camera system, he did not realize it also needed a particular laptop. This device ensures the police can record video and save it onto an internal database.
“I was under the understanding that we had all the Toughbooks in the cars, but I simply missed that one. There’s no other reasonable explanation for that one,” he added.
Even though Oleniuk “fell on the sword” with this issue, Bourassa said he missed this as well.
It is admirable that people have admitted they made a mistake, said board chairman Mayor Fraser Tolmie. However, he noted that the initial report that Oleniuk wrote was not submitted on Nov. 16, 2020, since that was when council was sworn in. This forced the mayor to search elsewhere for the report.
“I think we need to tighten up a little bit on some of those things. I think we have to ask those questions,” Tolmie continued, “because the camera cost us $8,018.04 plus installation. So I think when we’re looking to do a little bit of equipment replacement, we need to know what’s fully involved.”
The mayor then wondered if the Toughbooks were interchangeable with other equipment or were isolated to one system.
The MJPS is now on its third generation of video cameras, which are vital to operations, safety and protection, explained Deputy Chief Rick Johns. The first-generation system used an in-car VCR system; the second-generation unit was a disc system; this third-generation system uses a Panasonic setup that requires a Toughbook laptop since they complement each other.
Members will be able to use this technology to input reports from their vehicles and solve other issues in the future, added Bourassa, but the technology captures video right now.
The next Board of Police Commissioners’ meeting is March 9.
