Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - While the police in the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg are currently having major problems with their body cams, the mini cameras of the officials in Hesse are currently running without restrictions. As the Ministry of the Interior in Wiesbaden informed dpa on Tuesday, around 1000 bodycams are currently in use by the Hessian police. In the past six years, a low double-digit number of batteries have failed. "However, the defects have never led to a significant restriction in the use of the bodycams," explained a spokesman. The broken parts were replaced in all affected devices.
The Baden-Württemberg police are currently having to do without about every second of their body cams because the devices have problems with the batteries. Around half of the approximately 2,100 devices of a certain type are affected, said a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior in Stuttgart. Because police officers are being threatened, spat at, hit and kicked more and more often, bodycams are intended to document attacks on officers, among other things.
In 2016, all Hessian police headquarters were equipped with bodycams to better protect the emergency services on duty from attacks, as the Hessian Ministry of the Interior further announced. Several hundred investigations have already been initiated using this technology - including acts of resistance against officials, violations of the weapons law, drug offenses or bodily harm.
