The issue of the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors purchasing body cameras for the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office has been “kicked down the road,” said two speakers during public comment at the June 3 supervisors regular monthly meeting.
Dawn Moore, the president of the NAACP Middlesex Branch Unit 7091, said debate surrounding the purchase of body cameras has been going on for six years. She added it is time to purchase cameras and get them in use.
Middlesex County is only one of 15 counties in the commonwealth where county deputies do not have access to body cameras, she said. “Most all of the other counties in the state use them and it is proven that body cameras enhance evidence collection,” said Moore. “The cost factor (of purchasing and utilizing cameras) should not be a factor because you can’t put a price on the security of our community and our deputies.”
Reasons for waiting
Back in 2022, Middlesex supervisors took the advice of Sheriff David Bushey and delayed purchase of cameras until renovation of the Lewis B. Puller Vocational Center building at Cooks Corner into a new sheriff’s headquarters was complete. The sheriff indicated in 2022 there was no where to store cameras in the old building at Saluda and Middlesex was not eligible for state grant funds to purchase cameras until a new sheriff’s office building was completed. The new sheriff’s office has recently been completed.
“We want body cameras more than anyone else,” said Bushey in 2022. “But, we need to be accredited and wait until we can get grant funding to buy them. We need to wait until then so the cameras won’t cost taxpayers out of the county’s budget.”
In March 2025, with the new sheriff’s office building nearly complete, supervisors learned it would cost $200,000 yearly to administer use of the cameras — plus the cost of the cameras. At that time, supervisors hedged on the matter and supervisors chairman Don Harris said the Virginia State Police do not wear body cameras. “They have car (dash) cameras and the sheriff’s department might look into a cost comparison of body and car (dash) cameras,” he said.
At an April 2025 board meeting, sheriff officials said a comparison was made and determined the use of dash cameras was going to cost more than the cost of body cameras.
The board voted on March 25 to allow a $20,000 grant to lapse that was to go towards purchase of body cameras. The grant had to be accepted and body cameras purchased by March 31.
The board agreed to begin immediately seeking other grants to go towards the purchase of the cameras and to coordinate that effort between the sheriff’s office and county officials.
Supervisors also agreed to form a “Body Camera Committee” to further study the issue. The committee is composed of two supervisors, sheriff’s department officials, county staff representatives and two citizens from the community. Moore and Robert Jackson are the citizens appointed.
History
The use of body cameras has been a hot topic in Middlesex since 2020, when George Floyd, an African-American man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minn. Since then there has been a nationwide effort to get body cameras on all police — for protection of the public and the police.
