For about three months earlier this year, the Grover Beach Police Department handed part of its paperwork over to artificial intelligence.
Officers tested Draft One, an AI system that takes body camera footage and turns it into a police report. The technology has the potential to save officers hours of paperwork.
Grover Beach Police Officer Raul Chavez was part of the 90-day trial. He said he wanted to give AI innovation an opportunity in his field.
“It was a new innovative technology that is made by a company that we already use,” Chavez said. “It was kind of like, why not try it out and see, you know, like if it's cool, if it's something that benefits the department.”
Chavez said Axon is an FBI-approved company that supplies Grover Beach PD with body cameras and stores the department’s footage. Axon recently developed Draft One and with the approval of the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney, Grover Beach was the first agency in San Luis Obispo County to try the software.
Neighboring Arroyo Grande Police Chief Dave Culver said advances in technology for first responders are inevitable.
“It doesn't remove the need for the officers to do the investigation and put all the pieces together,” Culver said. “It's a tool no different than when we went from typewriters to computers and when we went from no radios in cars to now we've got a laptop in the car.”
In smaller departments like Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach, Culver said the less time an officer can spend in the office doing paperwork, the better it is for the community.
“We know that officer visibility is a crime preventative,” Culver said. “If we're out in the community, patrolling, driving around, we're able to respond to emergency calls that much faster.”
Chavez said Grover Beach PD stopped using Draft One after the trial period. Though he said he could tell the system was improving with each use, he noted a few downfalls, including the cost of $65 per officer, per month. He said the system wasn't worth keeping around at this time.
“For the most part, every officer has an earpiece so the camera is not connected to our radio,” Chavez said. “They're completely separate systems and so sometimes the information you get on the radio is really important in a report. But unfortunately, that doesn't get transcribed into the body camera, so that part was a little bit lacking.”
Officer Chavez said if the system improves, Grover Beach police may reconsider using AI in the future.
