Clackamas County Sheriff | Body-worn and in-car cameras
Five Axon purchases in five years, from a 2021 body camera order to a ten-year, twenty-one million dollar contract addendum, all of it moving through consent agendas on levy money.
At a glance
- Body cameras
- $1,588,994.50 (June 2021, ELED budget), then $2,064,717 with Tasers, software and training (January 2022, Sheriff's levy) [1] [2]
- In-car cameras
- 150 in-vehicle cameras with licenses, data storage and installation, $1,554,688.82 (March 2022) [3]
- The 2024 order
- "Public safety video surveillance equipment with related software, cloud services, and accessories", $860,810.18 for 3 years. The consent item's sentence is the record's whole description [4]
- The consolidation
- A Governmental Contracting Addendum for "law enforcement equipment and software", $21,082,868.72 for 10 years (November 2025) [5]
- Funding
- The Sheriff's levy and the Enhanced Law Enforcement District; the consent items note no county general funds, except the in-car purchase, which mixes general funds with levy and district money [2] [3] [5]
- Published policy
- unknown. The Sheriff's own website is closed to crawlers by its robots file, which we honor; the policy could not be checked this pass [1]
How it happened
- Decision
Body cameras arrive on the consent calendar
The Board approves the purchase of body cameras from Axon Enterprise for the Sheriff's Office, $1,588,994.50 through the Enhanced Law Enforcement District budget. A month later the office applies for a federal Bureau of Justice Assistance grant to expand the program. [1]
- Decision
Cameras, Tasers and the software around them
A cooperative-contract purchase of body cameras, Tasers, accessories, software services and training, total value $2,064,717 through the Sheriff's Office levy. [2]
- Decision
150 in-vehicle cameras
An agreement with Axon for 150 in-vehicle cameras, licenses, accessories, data storage and installation, $1,554,688.82 through general funds, levy, and Enhanced Law Enforcement District funds. [3]
- Decision
A purchase order the record describes in one sentence
"Public safety video surveillance equipment with related software, cloud services, and accessories", $860,810.18 for three years through the Sheriff's Public Safety Local Option Levy. What the equipment is does not appear in the record; Axon's catalog spans fixed cameras, real-time software, drones and plate readers, and the records request asks for the equipment schedule. [4]
- Decision
Ten years, twenty-one million dollars
The day after a work-session presentation whose published trace is its agenda title, the Board approves a Governmental Contracting Addendum with Axon for law enforcement equipment and software: $21,082,868.72 over ten years, through the Sheriff's Public Safety Levy. The addendum's schedules are in the records request. [5]
Five purchases, one vendor, one motion each
Every purchase in this system’s history moved through a consent agenda: a list of items approved in one motion unless a commissioner pulls one out. Body cameras in June 2021. Body cameras, Tasers and the software around them in January 2022. 150 in-vehicle cameras in March 2022. The 2024 order for “public safety video surveillance equipment”. The ten-year, $21 million addendum in November 2025, presented at a work session the day before under a one-line agenda title.
None of that is irregular. Consent calendars are how boards process routine contracting, and a levy-funded purchase with no general-fund impact is the kind of item that lands there. It is still worth stating what it means for oversight: the county’s largest law enforcement technology commitment, a decade long, entered the record as one line among a day’s approvals, and the fullest public description of what it buys is the phrase “law enforcement equipment and software”.
The sentence that could mean anything
The August 2024 order is the one this page can say least about. “Public safety video surveillance equipment with related software, cloud services, and accessories” is the record’s entire description of $860,810.18. Axon’s catalog spans body cameras, fixed cameras, real-time crime center software, drones and plate readers, so the sentence is compatible with equipment this county’s record otherwise never mentions. The records request asks for the purchase order’s equipment schedule, which will say what the sentence does not.
Where the rules would be
Oregon law requires an agency using body cameras to adopt policies and procedures for the recordings (ORS 133.741, in the sources). Whether and where this Sheriff’s Office publishes its policy could not be checked: the office’s own website closes itself to crawlers in its robots file, which we honor, and the county’s main site carries the purchases but not the policies. The policy, the retention settings, and the equipment schedules are all in the drafted records request.
What we do not know
- The equipment schedule of the 2024 "public safety video surveillance equipment" order, and of the 2025 ten-year addendum. The consent items describe both in a sentence each.
- The body-worn and in-car camera policies. Oregon law (ORS 133.741) requires an agency using body cameras to adopt policies and procedures for the recordings; the Sheriff's website, where a policy would publish, is closed to crawlers.
- The retention settings for footage in Axon's evidence platform, and who can query it.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Clackamas County.
What we have documented in Clackamas County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1.
- 2. Business meeting, 6 January 2022 (agenda 4 January) · Primary document · · accessed
- 3. Business meeting, 10 March 2022 (agenda 8 March) · Primary document · · accessed
- 4. Business meeting, 8 August 2024 (agenda 6 August) · Primary document · · accessed
- 5.
- 6.
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