After a Richmond Heights police officer shot and killed Terry Tillman on Saturday, many people are asking whether the officer was wearing a body camera.
The answer is no.
5 On Your Side can verify that because Richmond Heights Police Department doesn't have body cameras. Not yet, anyway.
Police body camera video can help investigators in these officer-involved shooting cases. A department spokesman told 5 On Your Side the department received federal grant money to buy the cameras, and they're in the final stages of implementing them.
They expect all 40 officers in the department -- everyone except for the chief -- to have those cameras in the next six months.
And more departments in St. Louis County should be armed with body cameras in the coming year.
The Brentwood Police Department told 5 On Your Side it expects to have them by the end of 2019, the Moline Acres police chief said his officers could have them in the next month and St. Louis County Police said they plan to have 700 body cameras in use by the first quarter of 2020.
Rolling out these cameras take time, and the main reason for that is money.
The Richmond Heights spokesman told 5 On Your Side the biggest burden isn't the up-front cost of the cameras, but rather the storage of that video data over time.
That cost was described as "monumental."