Nobody likes getting a parking ticket, let’s face it. But parking officers are just doing their job… and sometimes that can get a little dicey.
So the Morristown Parking Authority will experiment with body cams for its officers.
“We hope we can get a 30-day trial in before the end of the year,” Nicole Fox, the parking authority’s new executive director, said on Thursday.
An MPA parking enforcement officer made the request, and the authority’s board approved the pilot project this week.
“The Morristown Parking Authority’s intent is that the use of (body worn cameras) may promote safety amongst its employees while interacting with the public and will promote accountability,” states a policy adopted by the commissioners.
Two body cams will be rotated among the authority’s four officers for a month, Fox said. Then the experiment will be reviewed to see if the cameras should become permanent parts of the officers’ gear.
Morristown police donned body cams in 2015. Morris Township started rolling them out in 2019. Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill last November mandating body-worn cameras for nearly all cops.
While police perform parking enforcement in many towns, the Morristown Parking Authority is a quasi-independent agency not affiliated with law enforcement.
A few years back, the MPA offered to help the town by patrolling neighborhoods for violations of parking permits.
Parking authority board member Linda Stamato called body cams “a wise move, especially given the fact that MPA officers do encounter problems from time to time and having a recording of what occurred is useful.”
Fox could not say whether any specific incident triggered the camera request.
Body cams for the pilot project will be provided by Axon. Any subpoenas or public requests to see incidents captured on video will be reviewed by the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office, she said.
Parking officers will be expected to activate their cameras while on-duty, except for when they are on breaks, or having discussions with supervisors, unions or on personal matters.
They should inform subjects when they are being recorded, “unless it is
unsafe or infeasible to provide such notification,” according to the board’s policy.
If a subject asks an officer to stop recording, it’s at the officer’s discretion. He or she “shall consider the privacy and safety interests of the person requesting de-activation, whether the encounter is hostile or other general safety concerns,” the policy states.
Recordings will be kept for 180 days.
