DAVENPORT - If you get stopped by Davenport police you may notice a new addition to their uniforms.
"We received our cameras early December," said Major Jeff Bladel, Davenport Police Department.
The Quad Cities' largest city is among the last to get these cameras, smaller communities had them first.
Hampton police got them in 2014, and both Blue Grass police and Mercer County deputies got them in 2015.
"It was a long system but they did the best job they could to make sure that we're getting the right camera system," said Bladel.
These cameras won't always be recording, officers will have to activate it."The rule of thumb is the officers who go out to a call will activate it, just so they know because things do change very rapidly, they may not have that time when they pull up on a call to think about it and activate it," said Bladel.
But in the next couple of months the department will upgrade not only the body cameras but the dash cams on squad cars.
"If you're responding to a call and you activate your overhead red lights that will activate not only your car camera but it will activate your body camera," said Bladel.
For Davenport police the cameras are a long time coming but may prove useful for every stop they make.
"We get a good opportunity to look at some video, review some of the calls that the officers are going on and it definitely gives us a sense of confirmation," said Bladel.
The department has 150 cameras and they can record video for up to 24 hours.
