By Joe Ragusa

BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington City Council will consider using a $29,000 grant from the federal government to test out some different kinds of police body cameras during its meeting Monday night.

Bloomington Police Chief Brendan Heffner said new state law establishing guidelines for those cameras and recent events involving police misconduct are not motivating the pilot program.

“I have been asked if we are looking at body cams because of some of the recent incidents last year, like Ferguson,” Heffner said. “No. A department of our size, we evolve and we are progressive, so it was eventually going to happen.”

Heffner said he’s looking at things like durability, data upload and how the cameras react to different lighting conditions, before making a bigger purchase later in the year.

Heffner said he expects there to be some extra costs associated with the police body cameras, including extra staff time and redaction equipment. But there could be some places where the department will save money because of the body cameras.

“When the in-car (dash) cameras came out, complaints went down and lawsuits went down because people could see (incidents) on video,” Heffner said.

Heffner said about 15 officers will be testing out three different kinds of cameras for 30-60 days starting in January.

A larger purchase will likely come up for council consideration later next year. Heffner said that could be between 80-to-100 cameras.

Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].