Muskingum Co. Sheriff’s Office may soon have body cameras

ZANESVILLE – Hundreds of law enforcement agencies in Ohio will be able to purchase the body cameras through a proposed $10,000,000 grant from Governor DeWine. DeWine says the cost of the camera technology can be expensive for midsize and rural departments like the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office.

“I’m glad to see that this time in this grant that they’re actually putting money there for personnel to manage it because, in the past, any kinds of grants had been just for the purchase of the equipment and if you have the equipment and have nobody to operate it, the equipment isn’t doing any good. So, at least, this grant has some opportunity for personnel cost and so we’re definitely going to explore that,” Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz said.

The cameras will be very valuable to the Sheriff’s Office and Lutz shares an example of the benefit of using camera technology from his past days in law enforcement.

“In the past, I remember distinctly at the South Zanesville Police Department when I was a chief down there, we had the old VHS truck mount videos and one of our officers got accused of talking negatively (and) using profanity on a call and we popped the VHS tape and played it for the judge and it was a boldface lie. It backed the officer up. So, those are the kinds of things that when people want to make things up on officers that you have to verify it and it can work in the other way. If we have an officer that’s not doing what he should be doing, it will tell that,” Lutz said.

Lutz anticipates the Sheriff’s Office would have the cameras within six months of receiving the grant award.