Moline Police roll out body cameras with language translation

MOLINE, Ill. (KWQC) - Body cameras will now do much more than capture video for the Moline Police Department.

The department rolled out body cameras in 2017, but now the cameras worn by all 84 officers will include real-time, two-way language translation in more than 60 languages.

“If you spoke a foreign language and we hit a button on the side of the body camera, it will auto detect that, and I would say within three seconds it is speaking back in the opposite language,” Moline Police Chief Darren Gault said.

Moline signed a five-year, roughly $150,000 contract with Axon, the company which makes the cameras with the translation capability.

The contract was paid for by a state grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Gault said the cameras will be a real asset to the department relieving the process of having to call in a translator, or officer that speaks a foreign language.

“From time to time the foreign language speaking officers are not available, or we don’t have a foreign language that we can translate immediately, real time with that individual,” he said.

Gault said now every officer will be able to communicate with people who have limited English proficiency.

The entire interaction is recorded and can be transcribed for court use in addition to aiding the officer in the field, further expanding the department’s ability to use technology in improving public safety.

“We got some really good feedback from police officers,” Gault said. “Just some simple traffic crashes where we need to understand what happened. The officer were able to effectively communicate with those people and get better information.”

Moline is the only police department in the Quad Cities to have the translation capability.

Gault said with Quad Cities law enforcement working closely, there is a possibility of them assisting neighboring departments with the technology.