A police department becomes the first in Clearfield County to start using body cameras.

Through donations from businesses and community members, Lawrence Township Police Department  was able to afford five of those cameras.

All on-duty officers will wear a camera. It is department policy that the cameras must record every interaction.

“This gives the prosecutors a different angle of what the officer actually sees, and the conversation of the officer and the individual the officer has contact with in real-time as the officer sees it,” Chief Doug Clark said.

Clearfield County District Attorney Bill Shaw said this video will be helpful if a case goes to court.

“Oftentimes we ask jurors to make very difficult decisions, and they want to be sure they’re making the right decision,” Shaw said. “These body cameras will give them that assurance.”

The department has dashboard cameras installed in half of its police units.

Eventually, the body cameras will sync with those dashboard cameras and record automatically.