Film critics who bristle at the latest three-hour epic from Martin Scorsese are unlikely to get much pity from Alamance County’s sheriff Terry Johnson.
Over the past several months, Johnson has seen some of his subordinates endure a far greater strain on their eyes due to his agency’s recent introduction of body cameras as a standard accessory for its patrol deputies and jailers.
A relative late-comer to this technology, Johnson had nevertheless made repeated requests for the cash to buy body cameras before the county’s board of commissioners finally budgeted the funds in June of 2025.
In a report to the commissioners on Monday, Johnson expressed gratitude for this allocation, which has enabled him to acquire 248 body cameras to equip his entire force. Johnson added, however, that he has yet to receive the two new positions which he’d also sought from the commissioners to review the footage these cameras generate.
To put things into perspective, the sheriff said that, in the month of July alone, his agency’s body cameras produced 16,682 individual clips that must be reviewed to ascertain if the footage should be preserved and ensure that his deputies and jailers followed proper procedures when they were recorded.
“The average number of videos per day is 625, and we’re really having a tough time trying to review all these videos [at current staffing levels].”
– Alamance County sheriff Terry Johnson
“The average number of videos per day is 625,” the sheriff went on to inform the commissioners, “and we’re really having a tough time trying to review all these videos.”
Johnson acknowledged that, for lack of better options, he has pulled one of captains and a lieutenant from their existing duties to vet all this footage. The sheriff added that he chose these two higher-ranking subordinates precisely because their task demands a supervisor’s knowledge of his agency’s policies and procedures.
According to the sheriff’s office, the footage which these two officers peruse includes recordings that are automatically triggered by things like a deputy’s blue lights or sirens.
They also include clips that deputies and jailers manually preserve in keeping with agency protocols. The sheriff’s cache of body cam footage even contains brief test clips that jailers and deputies record when they come on their shifts. The agency has nevertheless trained its personnel to label these low-priority clips as an aid to the brass who have to review them.
