At the end of the shift, an officer puts the camera and battery pack in a docking system, and all of the video from that shift is downloaded automatically onto Taser's Evidence.com software. There is no extra paperwork.  "We settled on Taser because the devices were better for patrol officers," said Farrar. He used grant money to pay for 54 cameras at a cost of $100,000. The Evidence.com software is an additional $80,000 a year.  Read MoreUS to embark on massive overhaul of Cuba relations  The system isn't perfect. The cameras only work if an officer hits the start button.  "If you deliberately don't use the device, then you're going to be held responsible for that," Farrar said.  Lindsay said, the "'I forgot' excuse really doesn't work anymore," though in the beginning, it took officers a while to remember to turn on the cameras.  "It's just like everything else now," Lindsay said. "You don't get out of your car without putting it in park, it's the same thing, we don't get out of our car without turning the camera on. It becomes muscle memory."  The clips stay in the system for as long as needed, and an audit trail of who "touches" the video is automatically generated. Only the chief or two supervising sergeants can delete a clip early, and if one of them tries to do that, the other two are immediately notified and can override that decision.  Has that ever happened? Once. A clip was deleted early when a police officer accidentally kept the camera rolling as he went to the bathroom.  Read MorePoll: 57% of Americans say race relations in US are bad  "One more pair of eyes doesn't bother me at all, because if you're doing the right thing, you shouldn't have to worry about that," said Lindsay.  He said that not only has the presence of a camera modified his behavior, but it's also modified the behavior of some people he encounters.  "I try to take that extra minute to make sure they understand what I'm talking about," he said. "The couple of people that I've mentioned it to and said, 'Just so you know, I'm recording everything,' even though they might be a little bit angry at the time, it seems like it's calmed them down just a little bit."  The cameras have proven durable enough to survive a fight that broke out between an officer and a suspect after Rialto got a call about a man who was acting violent. (Video of the incident is below.)
Police departments are increasingly turning to body cameras to build trust and provide accountability for officers. But does it work?