SYCAMORE – The Sycamore Police Department is weeks away from their new body camera system going live, police officials said.

Sycamore Police Chief Jim Winters told city officials during a virtual City Council meeting Monday, the cameras have arrived at the department. He proceeded to show city officials what the new body cameras that officers will be wearing will look like during the meeting.

“We’ll start working with our IT contractor to kind of connect the dots of this system, and our target is still for us to get those out on the street by January,” Winters said.

The update comes after the City Council voted during its Oct. 19 meeting to approve buying the police body-worn cameras for $57,530 for the first five years with Texas-based company WatchGuard. According to city documents, the proposal included 20 body cameras, mounting brackets, charging stations, software and licensing, and five-year warranties.

Winters had said the system will be a local server-based system – same as the current in-car camera system – as opposed to cloud-based. However, he had said, the police department would have the option in the agreement with WatchGuard to upgrade to the cloud-server system, should they need or want to.

Sycamore City Manager Brian Gregory said during the Oct. 19 meeting body-worn cameras have become an essential tool for modern policing. He said, citing conversations with and among police officials, police officers are in favor of being outfitted with the cameras.

“It’s important when you have good police officers doing good work, as we have, that body cameras would confirm what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis,” Gregory said.

Gregory said the city previously replaced the police department’s in-car camera system using state grant funds. While the city did not have body cams initially budgeted in the city’s capital program, some of the grant funds meant for the in-car system, along with other police capital allocation, will be used to fund the body camera system, which will fully integrate with the department’s in-car system.

The DeKalb County Board also approved the purchase for the cameras earlier this year, as did the city of DeKalb.