Supes bid Sheriff’s body cameras

Body camera for Neshoba County Sheriff’s deputies will be bid by the Board of Supervisors rather than taking Sheriff Eric Clark’s sole-source proposal.

Sheriff Eric Clark told the Democrat Tuesday he presented a $49,000 sole-source proposal to supervisors on Monday for Watch Guard body cameras recommended far and wide by colleagues and professions because of certain features unavailable elsewhere.

Philadelphia Police and the Leake County Sheriff’s Department use Watch Guard cameras, Clark saiid, and their specific functionality meets the needs of his department. 

His proposal included 15 body cameras, a five-year warranty and other support features like cloud storage of the footage. 

“These cameras are state-of-the art,” Clark said. “This is a really good product and a much-needed tool for our guys to have in their belt.”

Clark said that the cloud storage feature giving them access to all of their collective footage is a deciding feature in his assessment.

“The money is the storage,” Clark said.

Clark said the proposal seemed reasonable based on his research and that most of the funds have already been generated through grants and donations including $10,000 from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians n December and $13,650 from the Weyerhaeuser Giving Fund last fall.

Clark said that supervisors decided that they wanted to bid out the cameras. 

Clark said that he was not sure when they would first issue the request for bids but said that once bids were solicited he expected it to be about a three-week process.

In other matters, supervisors voted to approve:

• Anthony Ball was moved to full-time correctional officer and promoted to shift supervisor.

• Correctional officer Courtney Copeland received a raise after completion of six months of  employment.

• Approve an inventory removal request from the sheriff’s department for non-working Motorola CP200d radios.