The Gustine City Council approved a five-year funding plan for the Gustine Police Department to purchase Tasers, body worn cameras and police fleet camera systems.
The funding is with Axon Enterprise Inc., and totals $189,695.66.
Tasers first started being used by police departments in 1993 by Axon.
“These weapons assist police officers when taking combative subjects into custody without the need to go hands-on,” said Gustine Police Chief Ruben Chavez in a City staff report. “Its use has been estimated to reduce injuries to front line personnel by four or five times when compared to traditional baton and pepper spray weapons.
Tasers are deployed in two manners by either driving the stun or by shooting dart-like probes towards a combative subject. Both methods cause electro muscular disruption where the subject's muscles become incapacitated as a result of the high voltage.
“Subjects who are rendered incapacitated feel pain and in the majority of cases, comply with the officers' lawful orders to surrender,” Chavez said.
Tasers are used by over 15,000 law enforcement agencies across the country. In several studies, the use of tasers has reduced worker's compensation claims by over 90%.
“In my short tenure with the department, I have seen the taser used successfully allowing officers to take a combative suspect into custody and avoid injury,” Chavez said.
On June 16, 2020, Council approved the purchase of eight Taser 7 devices. The contract was for a five-year term, ending in 2025. In 2023, Axon announced a new taser product, the Taser 10. While the Taser 7 discharged two separate probes simultaneously, the Taser 10 discharges ten separate probes one at a time.
“This provides for a more accurate deployment and use of the weapon and minimizes probes being discharged to unintended targets,” Chavez said.
Axon has offered the ability to upgrade at lower pricing to avoid increased product costs at renewal. In addition, the upgrade includes unlimited data storage, which was formerly cost prohibitive due to the pricing scheme for this feature.
Axon also is offering to renew the City's separate body worn camera contract simultaneously, as that contract was coming up for renewal in 2025 as well. Council approved the purchase of 12 body worn cameras on Aug. 4, 2020, and entered into contract with Axon. To add to Axon's equipment deployment, Council additionally approved the replacement of the non-functioning in-car cameras on Aug. 1, 2023, which authorized the purchase of six Fleet3 Axon in-car cameras. While the cameras were approved in 2023, they arrived in 2024 and to date, three have been installed with the other three pending installation.
The body worn cameras and fleet cameras through Axon has the added benefit of saving the Department time. District Attorney office’s at times will request evidence such as photos or video when preparing for prosecution. In the past, staff was required to research the evidence needed and provide it via hard copy or flash drive. Dependent on the request, the work needed could be all-consuming of staff's time. Evidence.com has recently incorporated a feature, which allows the Office of District Attorney to directly access the database to gather and prepare for criminal cases alleviating the need for staff's involvement. This process provides a digital footprint for chain of custody documentation.
Since the department has three separate product contracts with Axon and with the caveat that renewing now would be a future cost saving measure, inquiry was made to determine if bundling all three contracts into one would be more efficient. Axon agreed that having one contract for all three products would be beneficial. This required extending the in-car camera contract by one year. The new contract for all three products begins in 2025 and concludes in 2029.
The bundle contract totals $172,325, not including the first car camera contract payment and includes unlimited enterprise data storage at no cost. The total for the three contracts separately totals $175,041. The bundle contract includes two payments of two payments in 2025, the first in the amount of $17,366 completes the previous contract thus adding one year. The costs would be over a five-year period with one equipment refresh after the first 2 ½ years. Refresh refers to replacing all the equipment with new equipment, which is included in the quote.
