17. BODY WORN CAMERA REPLACEMENT The Tustin Police Department is committed to a partnership with our business and residential community to provide the highest level of service based on trust and transparency. Body worn camera footage serves as another layer of transparency and provides unparalleled public accountability by providing a detailed and accurate account of the events as they occur. In terms of evidence collection, the cameras provide an invaluable record of statements, physical evidence and the timeline of events during crimes in progress and other critical incidents. The capture and recording of these critical incidents and police related encounters strengthens our relationship with the community through increased trust and confidence. These are some of the reasons the City of Tustin adopted the body worn camera program which was implemented in 2016. Our last contract with WatchGuard was a five-year contract and cameras were due to be replaced last year. Due to other large-scale projects occurring at the Police Department and the fact WatchGuard's new generation cameras had just come out, we purchased the extended warranty on our existing cameras in an effort to extend the cameras usage for one more year. Technology moves quickly and our existing body worn cameras are now six years old. Officers are currently experiencing hardware issues and are having consistent problems with battery life. WatchGuard has developed new generation cameras and are phasing out our existing cameras. This coupled with the global supply chain issues related to electronics, have made it difficult to attain replacement cameras and parts when ours are damaged in the field, break or the battery is depleted. The new generation cameras have updated features, improved hardware and longer battery life. Our officers are currently field testing these new generation body worn cameras and the reviews have been extremely positive. In order to keep our body worn camera program operational, it has become necessary to replace our current cameras with the new generation WatchGuard body worn cameras.