Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - The police in North Rhine-Westphalia currently have to do without about a third of their body cams because they have battery problems. The conspicuous batteries would now be successively replaced, said a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior on Friday. The approximately 3,000 devices are not impaired or defective. The "Express" had previously reported about it.
According to the ministry, the problems became known through information from the Baden-Württemberg police. The affected batteries swell up slightly, creating a "very small gap between the camera and the carrier plate". So far, the review has shown that around a third of the devices are affected, the ministry spokesman said. According to the manufacturer, the delivery time for the new batteries is four to six weeks.
The police in North Rhine-Westphalia is equipped with around 9,000 bodycams. It is not known that there have been bottlenecks in police authorities, said the ministry spokesman. Should a single authority have too few, there would be a state-wide compensation.
The State Office for Police Services (LZPD) NRW informed all police authorities in the state about the problems on August 10th - two days after the deadly police operation in Dortmund, in which a 16-year-old was killed by five shots from a police submachine gun .
The body cams were not switched on. According to investigators, the reason for this was that the use was initially not suitable for a bodycam – since the young person apparently wanted to kill himself with a knife. When the situation changed and he approached the police officers with the knife, the situation became so stressful for the officers within seconds that nobody thought of the body cam. According to the Ministry of the Interior, a service instruction from the NRW police does not permit the filming of "very personal circumstances".
