West Midlands Police deploys 1,600 Axon Body 2 cameras
Axon Public Safety UK, part of TASER International, today announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide West Midlands Police with 1,600 Axon Body 2 cameras, along with a multi-year contract for Evidence.com, its cloud-based digital evidence management platform.
Above:
'Policing for the Future' produced by ITN Productions in partnership with the Police Federation of England and Wales.
The decision follows a 12-month trial period during which West Midlands Police performed trials with two body camera solutions, ultimately choosing the Axon solution for its seamless integrations and ability to securely manage and share digital evidence from capture to courtroom. This order was received and shipped in the second quarter of 2016.
Above:
Axon Body 2 camera.
In addition to deploying Axon Body 2 cameras and Evidence.com, officers will also be using Axon Capture and Axon View mobile applications. From capturing audio evidence to live streaming video in the field, these mobile apps helped solidify the Axon solution as the best fit within the framework of WMP2020, West Midlands Police's five year transformation program.
"For us Evidence.com is cost effective, flexible, secure and we can easily share with third parties like the courts, CPS, defenses and others," said Chief Superintendent Chris Todd from West Midlands Police.
"In addition to providing us a central repository for securely managing our digital evidence, the Axon solution also provides an opportunity for us to present better evidence in the courtroom."
"In just the last six months, several of the largest forces in the UK, the Met, GMP and West Midlands, have made long term investments in body-worn video and associated Digital Evidence Management solutions," said Matt Spencer, Managing Director of Axon Public Safety UK.
"Forces are now recognising that it's not just about the body-worn video camera. They understand that it's about the different ways in which you capture digital evidence and then how you manage, retrieve, securely store and share that data. It's about the end to end workflow of that evidence so it can be used to protect the truth and protect victims of crime. Hyper-cloud technologies like Evidence.com are driving how we use digital evidence in order to achieve these positive outcomes for forces. The cloud is the key enabler and today we are only seeing a fraction of what is going to be possible in the next 3-5 years."