Allentown police will unveil new body cameras at a public meeting in City Council Chambers on Tuesday, October 17 from 6pm to 7pm.

The body cameras were purchased from VIEVU of Seattle, Washington with the help of a $500,000 matching grant from the U.S Department of Justice. The city was awarded the competitive grant during the first round of funding in September 2015.

The meeting will include a PowerPoint presentation, actual body camera video, a live demonstration and remarks by Mayor Ed Pawlowski and Police Chief Glen Dorney. Members of the public will have an opportunity to ask questions.

The department purchased 200 body cameras. One-hundred-fifty cameras will be assigned to the patrol division. It is anticipated that the body cameras will be fully operational on November 1, 2017.

Body camera policy is the result of input from Allentown police, the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office and the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance.

The mandatory storage of the video and the public’s access to it are governed by recently enacted state law. Among other things, the measure allows police to record audio and video inside private homes — previous laws only allowed video — and it removes previous state wiretapping regulations that required officers to make an announcement when recording in public places.

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