ALLEN COUNTY, OH (WLIO) - Monday, the Lima Chapter of the NAACP held a news conference to talk again about body cameras.
They said that they have contacted Governor Mike DeWine's offices to talk about mandating body cameras for law enforcement. They would like to see the Allen County Sheriff's Office equipped with the cameras because they say Allen is the largest county in our area without them. We talked to Sheriff Matt Treglia about the issue again, and he says it is not the cost of the equipment that is keeping his office from getting them. It is that the laws regarding the cameras need to be addressed first to protect the privacy of the citizens he represents.
"I wish if Ron Fails was going to talk to the governor about all this, he would talk more about legislation," says Sheriff Treglia. "Because that is what I have been citing the whole time. It's legislation for you, it is legislation for the citizens of Allen County. To be secure in your homes, to be secure in your churches, which body cams will record, and I don't think that should be allowed. That is what I wish he would talk about more, changing legislation that way we can get together and we would have body cameras. It wouldn't be an issue at all."
And Sheriff Treglia doesn't believe that the governor would ever require law enforcement to get body cameras.
"The governor, Mike DeWine, he is not in for unfunded mandates. So, it is going to be hard for him to mandate across the state that everybody wear body cameras, without funding a large portion of money to do such a thing," adds Treglia. "So, we will see where that goes, but as I said I would be all for a change in legislation with the NAACP, and we would have no problem and we would get these body cameras."
The governor did say in his state of the state address, he will be 40 million dollars per year for continuous training for Ohio law enforcement officers on topics ranging from de-escalation to dealing with someone with mental illness.
