The Minnesota State Patrol is fully equipped with body worn cameras as of May 5th. The statewide rollout of the Body Camera Project began December 1st, 2021 and was completed on time and within the projected budget.
Col. Matt Langer, Chief of the Minnesota State Patrol said “Although we’d like to think every State Trooper is perfect, we are human beings just like everyone else. Capturing interactions on body worn cameras will help hold everyone accountable because they provide a record of what actually occurred between the trooper and the member of the public.”
During the project, the Minnesota State Patrol installed 644 in car camera systems and issued body worn cameras to 613 sworn members of the patrol and 92 non sworn members. Body worn cameras have also been issued to commercial vehicle inspectors and capitol security officers. In total, it issued 705 body cameras and 1,349 camera systems over the last five months.
Since the start of the project, the agency has captured more than 281,680 pieces of video evidence, which equates to 60,631 hours of video. In the last month, troopers captured 96,380 pieces of video evidence for a total of 19,840 hours of video.
Troopers are projected to record an average 3,212.66 pieces of video evidence – 616 hours- per day across the state now that the project is complete.