By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.
Rio Rancho police will roll out 25 new body-worn cameras, automatic evidence tagging and virtual reality training after the Governing Body voted Aug. 27 to consolidate three separate Axon contracts into one 90-month agreement.
Lt. Brandon McKinney told the council the deal bundles existing TASER, body-worn camera and Fusus real-time crime center contracts into a single agreement priced through a state cooperative contract, 28% below list price. The total cost is $4,420,306.80, with a first-year payment of $363,688.85 — less than what’s already budgeted this fiscal year.
Richard Sanchez raised Fourth Amendment concerns during public comment, saying expanded surveillance technology could be misused. “This is a really big infringement on our Fourth Amendment rights,” he said, and asked whether the money could instead fund education, roads or housing.
McKinney said the city negotiated safeguards, including a contract clause allowing the city to terminate all or part of the agreement at any time, for any reason, or if future funding isn’t approved.
More details
- Auto-tagging automatically links body camera footage to case numbers, officers, dates and locations, cutting manual data entry, McKinney said.
- Axon Assistant translation is intended to improve communication with multilingual residents during police interactions.
- The cameras are limited to body-worn devices, not traffic enforcement.
Read the full staff report and contract: D54 agenda item
Contact your councilor:
- District 1 – Deborah Dapson: ddapson@rrnm.gov
- District 2 – Jeremy Lenentine: jlenentine@rrnm.gov
- District 3 – Bob Tyler: btyler@rrnm.gov
- District 4 – David Mann: dmann@rrnm.gov
- District 5 – Karissa Culbreath: kculbreath@rrnm.gov
- District 6 – Nicole List: nlist@rrnm.gov