{"id":240424,"date":"2026-05-06T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/baltimore-to-spend-153m-for-police-tasers-ai-body-cameras\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:05:08","slug":"baltimore-to-spend-153m-for-police-tasers-ai-body-cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/baltimore-to-spend-153m-for-police-tasers-ai-body-cameras\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore to spend $153M for police Tasers, AI body cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baltimore to spend $153M for police Tasers, AI body cameras<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.thebanner.com\/community\/local-news\/ai-artificial-intelligence-baltimore-police-cameras-tasers-law-enforcement-crime-SJTQL2QA5VAPXOAVQWREIEFHGM\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-06 14:49:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.thebanner.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Baltimore will spend $153 million to replace the city Police Department\u2019s fleet of Tasers and to add a new complement of body-worn cameras with artificial intelligence capabilities. <\/p>\n

The city\u2019s spending board on Wednesday approved a no-bid, 10-year contract with Axon Enterprises, a company that outfits law enforcement agencies with various technologies, to continue supplying the Baltimore Police Department with body cameras, stun guns and data management software.<\/p>\n

In a 3-1 vote approving the contract, Council President Zeke Cohen voted against the agreement while Comptroller Bill Henry abstained, both citing concerns about the way the deal was bid.<\/p>\n

Baltimore Police already uses Axon Tasers and body cameras, police spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said in an email ahead of Wednesday\u2019s Board of Estimates meeting. <\/p>\n

While the Tasers are simply updated replacements for those that have worn out, the body cameras have new capabilities, she said. These cameras have an AI function that can \u201cassist officers, detectives, supervisors and reviewers in translation, transcription, summarization, and searching\u201d footage.<\/p>\n

Eldridge explained the contract includes a two-year provision for Baltimore Police to test the AI function and then determine whether it wants to purchase those capabilities. <\/p>\n

During the test run, the city and the Police Department will develop guardrails for AI use and standard operating procedures, Eldridge said. \u201cAll new technologies will be fully tested and piloted before agency-wide deployment is ever considered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry and Cohen, the two members of the five-person Board of Estimates who don\u2019t work for the mayor, expressed concerns Wednesday about the lack of competition for the Axon contract. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe owe it to ourselves and the residents that live here and pay taxes to engage in competitive bidding processes,\u201d Cohen said. <\/p>\n

Police officials countered that their existing use of Axon infrastructure would mean that switching to another company would lead…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baltimore to spend $153M for police Tasers, AI body cameras https:\/\/www.thebanner.com\/community\/local-news\/ai-artificial-intelligence-baltimore-police-cameras-tasers-law-enforcement-crime-SJTQL2QA5VAPXOAVQWREIEFHGM\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-06 14:49:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.thebanner.com\/resizer\/v2\/ACABOXLDG5BRXK2AG2SGZKC2XY.png?auth=c0f53b2a14bb041368fa7a8454a3eb37f575dfff0caad4815d9943f9afd96516&width=1280&height=720&focal=1020,386&quality=85","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240426,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240424\/revisions\/240426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}