Apache Junction police getting new Tasers, body-worn cameras
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Every one of our officers and sergeants will be issued a body camera. Our policy will state that they wear that body camera at all times while they are on duty and when they have contact with anybody — resident, citizen, visitor, whoever it may be — that they have that body camera activated.”
Apache Junction police will soon have 60 new Axon Enterprise Inc. Taser stun guns and 55 body-worn cameras with $326,447.56 paid from American Rescue Plan Act funds given to the city.
The city council approved the purchase in a unanimous vote Aug. 16 as part of a consent agenda with other items.
“This is going to be something that is much-needed for our police department. We currently have very few officers that have body-worn cameras. Also, our Tasers are outdated,” Police Chief Michael Pooley said at a work session Aug. 15. “Every one of our officers and sergeants will be issued a body camera. Our policy will state that they wear that body camera at all times while they are on duty and when they have contact with anybody — resident, citizen, visitor, whoever it may be — that they have that body camera activated.”
Images captured by the camera with be housed in Axon’s cloud-based server at evidence.com, he said.
“(I)t holds all of the evidence. It holds photos, videos, documents that we can upload in there from our cellphones, which our officers are going to have. We’ll be able to provide links to a victim where they too, if they are a victim of a burglary, they can upload everything to that link on their cellphone, take their own photos of things and send that directly to the report as well,” Pooley said.
AJPD’s X26P Tasers are 10 to 15 years old and will be replaced with the newer Taser 7 model.
“They are very outdated. Some of them are broken and we need to outfit our officers with the best equipment that’s out there. These Tasers sync with the body cameras so when you deploy the Taser it automatically makes sure that the body camera is recording as well,” Chief Pooley said.
There will be an annual cost of $132,708.40 for cloud storage and maintenance fees after the first year, according to his presentation to the council.
Vice Mayor Christa Rizzi asked how often the Tasers and body-worn cameras need to be updated.
“Do they last awhile?” she asked.
“What happens is inside the police department we have docking stations — they are all connected to the network. Every night when our officers get off or every day when they get off of their shift they dock that camera into the docking station. It uploads everything that was used for the day. It also does any type of updates or anything that needs to be done electronically,” Pooley said.
Councilmember Peter Heck asked what will be done with the old and outdated Tasers.
“Part of that is we’ll return those back to Taser. They’ll ... fix them or not and give them to other departments as well,” Pooley said.
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Meet Richard Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.
Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.
Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.
Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.
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