CARLSBAD — The Carlsbad City Council unanimously approved a five-year, $1.85 million agreement with Axon Enterprise Inc. to continue providing police body-worn cameras, evidence storage and related services.
The agreement, approved Sept. 15 as part of the consent calendar, also adds software that will connect video sources and detection feeds through the Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center, according to a city staff report.
Carlsbad first contracted with Axon for body-worn cameras in 2016 and renewed the agreement in 2021. The latest renewal establishes a third five-year term, with the previous contract set to expire this month.
The council approved the renewal as an amendment to a broader agreement with Axon, approved in February, for a police case records management system. The amendment allows the city to use the terms and conditions negotiated under that agreement.
The 10-year records management agreement totals nearly $2.96 million, including about $1.52 million for first-year implementation. Adding the cameras and related services brings the combined cost to about $4.81 million, according to the report.
The city stated in its report that body-worn cameras “have been proven to assist in the collection of evidence, enhance public trust and improve officer and community safety.”
“Body worn cameras also allow for evaluation of many performance or misconduct complaints by the public,” the report continued. “Video footage may also be shared to enhance public understanding and awareness of police incidents and activities.”
Carlsbad police have released body-worn camera footage to provide accounts of several high-profile incidents in recent years, including a March 2024 skateboard attack on Officer Michael McKinney that left him with a skull fracture and brain bleed.
The attacker, Kyle McCord, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the assault in March 2025. The department also released footage of a September 2023 police shooting that wounded a 16-year-old boy who police said pointed a gun at an officer, and a June 2020 arrest in which officers used a Taser on Marcel Cox-Harshaw, an unarmed Black man.
The latter release followed public attention over a bystander’s cellphone video, though both officers’ body cameras fell off during the encounter, leaving about two minutes of audio without a clear view of the arrest.
Axon stores captured video through its cloud-based evidence.com system. The report says standardized equipment across the region allows Carlsbad police to share evidence with other agencies in the county.
The agreement also provides replacement body-worn cameras every 2½ years at no additional cost.
Beyond the cameras, the renewal covers interview room recording technology, tools to redact protected audio and video before public release, drone video storage and digital evidence collection. It also includes a feature that automatically links body camera recordings to incidents logged in the department’s computer-aided dispatch system.
Additional user licenses will support recently added staff in the department’s Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving unit.
The only new technology included in the amendment is the Fusus Real Time Crime Center platform, which combines video sources and detection feeds in a single map-based interface to help police coordinate responses, according to the report. Staff described the platform as part of the department’s long-term strategy for addressing crime.
The city is purchasing the equipment and services through an existing competitively bid Sourcewell contract. The city will fund annual costs of approximately $370,600 through its information technology operating budget, with first-year funding included in the fiscal year 2026-27 budget and subsequent years subject to the annual budget process.
