Body camera experts headed to Nashville to advise city leaders

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — The Nashville Mayor's office is getting ready to host a group of body camera experts. The group travels the country helping cities implement these cameras. The Bureau of Justice Assistance, part of the federal government, is paying for them to come to Nashville.

Amid a budget crisis, Mayor Cooper's office laid out a timeline to outfit 44 officers with cameras in 2020. He cites much higher cost estimates from the DA's office and police department as the reason for the scaled back roll out.

Now, a consultant group brought in by the Department of Justice is on the way to try and clear things up and teach Nashville how to best get these cameras on officers. Body Worn Camera Training and Technical Assistance is made up of experts from all over the country who've implemented cameras in various different departments.

They say one of the biggest cost factors is storage. According to an online presentation put on by the group, many large departments use the cloud to store video.

If Metro chose to go that route, the cost to store video through the camera company would have been $495 per camera per year. However, Metro is choosing to build their own internal storage system. The initial cost to integrate that system with all of their others is $5,200 per camera. After that it would be about $432,000 per year.

This group will be here the next two days, and then in February they'll take a group to Memphis to see how they've implemented cameras.