A homeless man sat in the bed of his white Ford F-150 filing his nails, while a large knife in a sheath hung bolted to the side of the bed was within arm’s reach. Unbeknownst to the three deputies approaching cautiously, the 52-year-old man had been shooting up meth, smoking marijuana and drinking a 25-ounce beer in the concealed gulley off Granite Hill Drive in Jurupa Valley. Fortunately, the man did not reach for the knife when deputies surprised him, an action that could have gotten him shot. And later during questioning, he remained calm as he described his struggles with substance abuse and search for handyman’s work. Those veteran deputies spoke compassionately and respectfully to a person down on his luck who they also believed was misleading them on how recently he had used meth. Had the encounter turned out differently, the deputies and the homeless man were confident that all had a good witness: the video cameras that all three deputies wore on their vests. “(Let’s say) he may have been more upset about the contact than I thought,” Deputy Steven Lycopolus said, speaking theoretically. “And then he makes a complaint.” The video would have reflected the deputies’ comportment, he said. To the homeless man, the video “keeps both parties honest. Nobody’s going to go Rodney King on you and do something stupid.” The video cameras the size of a garage-door opener were rolled out Monday at the sheriff’s Jurupa Valley station, which patrols the cities of Jurupa Valley, Eastvale and Norco, and several nearby communities. After testing several varieties of cameras, the Sheriff’s Department settled on a model made by Seattle-based Vievu and purchased 165 of the devices that are being made available to the Jurupa Valley deputies for further testing. Officials want to learn how the plastic cameras hold up in heat, cold, foot pursuits and physical struggles. The results of the testing will be used to write a formal policy on the cameras’ use if Sheriff Stan Sniff decides to expand their use countywide. On Thursday, March 19, a Press-Enterprise reporter and photographer rode with Deputy Aaron Avila, a 12-year veteran, as he patrolled the rural Jurupa Valley communities of Rudiboux and Pedley in an unmarked car. Avila usually works in homeless outreach and with the Special Enforcement Team. Avila was not answering radio calls that day and instead interviewed people who seemed out of place on the streets and made traffic stops. The rules for the cameras’ use by the Jurupa Valley deputies, called the Standard Operating Procedure, say “The use of this device is voluntary” in underlined and boldfaced type. All 44 deputies briefed Monday on the cameras chose to wear them, said the station commander, Capt. Jason Horton. And the three deputies interviewed Thursday, March 19, emphatically said that they did not feel pressure or coercion to use them. googleoff: allgoogleon: all
Hover over infographic to see what deputies carry
“It’s a great tool to have out in the field not only to assist our investigations, but also to address any issues a citizen might have,” Avila said. “Prove they (the deputies) make professional decisions.” UNION CONCERNS The Riverside Sheriff’s Association, the union that represents the deputies, agrees that the cameras can be a useful tool. But the union has sued the county to suspend the camera program because the union contends that the use of the cameras constitutes a change in terms and conditions of employment that should have be negotiated beforehand. The union left it up to the deputies’ discretion whether to use the cameras but cautioned there could be unforeseen problems without a negotiated, formal policy. “It is in the policies and in the lack of policies, training, direction, control, understanding and standards that together permit arbitrary, retaliatory, vindictive and ad hoc enforcement of unwritten rules,” Darryl Drott, the union’s executive director, wrote in an email to deputies. Michael P. Stone is the general counsel for the union and represented a Los Angeles police officer accused of assaulting motorist Rodney King in the notorious 1991 beating that a citizen captured on his video camera. Stone said in an interview Friday that he was not surprised that so many Riverside County deputies chose to wear the cameras. “They are team players. They are good, loyal deputy sheriff employees. Their employer asked them to do this, and they want to make their employer happy,” he said. But, Stone added, “We would applaud this ... if the sheriff had ever invited dialogue from the RSA. For reasons we don’t understand ... the sheriff is refusing to discuss it with the union. When you want buy in from the troops, it seems to me you should be securing the buy in before you put the product on the table.” The Sheriff’s Department has maintained that it is not required to negotiate the camera issue so long as their use remains in a testing phase. Stone said the union leadership is particularly troubled that while Jurupa Valley deputies may view their videos to help write reports on routine incidents, they are not allowed to view videos from major incidents such as uses of force or in-custody deaths that can be hectic and rapidly developing before making statements to investigators. Horton, the Jurupa Valley captain, said the department has good reason for that policy that is spelled out in the Standard Operating Procedure. “These instances require the department to lawfully conduct objective and credible investigations of our involved officers and staff,” Horton wrote in an email. “Providing video camera information to our involved deputies in those narrow circumstances before they make a statement undermines the public credibility and legal objectivity of those investigations in the department’s view, allowing the deputy to be coached by having access to the evidence at hand.” A SEED IN DEPUTIES’ MINDS The new piece of equipment gives deputies one more thing to carry and one more thing to remember. After the approximate five-hour ridealong Thursday, Avila said he turned the camera on at each public contact and only once nearly forgot to slide open the plastic lens covering to activate the device. He added that the cameras, which also record audio, make him think a little more about what he says. Avila said a traffic stop Thursday was one such instance. A Hispanic motorist accused Avila of pulling him over for no reason other than his ethnicity. The man also animatedly described years of run-ins with the police, including being pulled over and having guns pointed at him and his wife. Avila calmly explained to the motorist that he was stopped for failing to signal and that Avila couldn’t determine his ethnicity from seeing only the back of his head from a distance. Lycopolus, who has been in law enforcement eight years, and his partner Thursday, 17-year veteran Sgt. Richard “Red” Heard, backed up Avila on that stop. They flanked the driver as he sat on the curb and his passenger as he stood nearby. Suddenly Avila’s camera, with no peripheral vision, had two more eyes assisting: “Phenomenal tool,” Heard said. “Each and every camera on scene gives us another entirely new angle. I think it engenders trust in us.” Heard wished he had the camera 15 years ago when he received his first complaint, for rudeness, which he said was unfounded. None of the people contacted by the deputies Thursday were initially aware that they were being videotaped. And when informed by a reporter, none complained. The man who objected to the traffic stop said “It’s OK for their protection and our protection. It’s more protection for them.” A man who along with her mother who were questioned in the parking lot of the Stater Bros. market on Mission Boulevard in Rubidoux said, “It doesn’t bother me. I have nothing to hide.“ A WORK IN PROGRESS Sgt. Andrew Elia, who is helping supervise the camera program, said the software is proving to be user-friendly. Still, some challenges are apparent. Avila cut a hole in his vest so he could insert the camera’s clip, and the lens was aiming too high. He watched as the computer took 16 minutes to upload 11 videos at the end of the ridealong. (Horton said deputies will typically write reports during this time and likely would upload fewer videos.) Another deputy gave up trying to view a video when the computer was taking several minutes to display a 1-minute video he had uploaded. “We‘re trying to flesh it out,” Heard said.
Tale of the tapes
Video software does not have an editing feature, so tapes can't be altered.
For each video, the computer shows who uploaded, copied or viewed the tape and when.
Videos are booked into evidence after they are uploaded.
Only the deputy who filmed and the Jurupa Valley station captain can view videos.
Videos are kept for 366 days to account for a leap year.
If you should find a lost sheriff's camera, you would not be able to upload the video to a home computer without the proper software and username/password.