The Beaumont City Council Tuesday approved a five-year, $1 million contract with Axon Enterprises for body-worn cameras and associated software, including artificial intelligence (AI), for use by the Beaumont Police Department.
“Axon is a company that became very popular when they created Taser, and we know what Taser is. They’ve been around for 20 years,” Chief Christopher Ramos said at the December 2 meeting. “It’s a company that’s been very innovative in the law enforcement field, and now they’re doing some great things with AI.”
The Beaumont Police Department has had body-worn cameras since 2018, Ramos said. At that time, the department contracted with Intrensic, LLC, a newer company that was able to serve the city for a good price. However, Ramos said, Wrap Technologies acquired the company in 2023, which made the department question whether it wanted to renew the contract, which expires next year.
“I think they’re a great company, but we want to pursue other options,” he said.
Ramos said the department tested three potential options for the service — Motorola Solutions, Wrap Technologies and Axon Enterprises — to see which provided the best service at the best price for the city.
“All have artificial intelligence in them,” he said. “And the reason why we want to pursue this is the report writing time for officers actually takes a majority of their day.”
Ultimately, the department decided to recommend the contract with Axon Enterprises, not only due to the price, which is lower than the price of continuing with Wrap Technologies, but also because of the additional services provided in the contract.
Those services include AI-assisted report writing that would generate report drafts, automatic transcription of recorded audio, real-time translation in the field using AI and a free equipment upgrade at the midpoint of the contract.
“We know technology ages quickly,” Ramos said. “Instead of buying new cameras every year, this contract is going to, every two and a half years, we automatically get the upgrade to the newest version, so we don’t have to worry about outdated equipment and saving money to try and get to where we should be every few years.”
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Additionally, the department was able to negotiate access to Axon’s digital personnel file system to digitally track and evaluate personnel investigations and performance data and use of the company’s AI-assisted redaction software. Ramos told the council it would be up to the officers to ensure the accuracy of content produced with the use of AI.
The department was also able to negotiate for the contract to begin ahead of the next fiscal year at a reduced price.
“They understand it takes multiple months to implement a new system,” Ramos said. “And with our old system ending at the end of this fiscal year, and if we had to wait for the new fiscal year, there would be a few months without a body worn camera system fully in place, so they actually lowered the first-year price.”
According to the company’s quote and quote summary, the first year costs are split into two payments: $9,352.35 that would be paid in February 2026 to cover the cost of implementation and $199,309.91 in July 2026, which would be for the fiscal year that runs July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027.
The city would then pay Axon Enterprises $199,309.91 every year through July 2030, with the contract ending June 30, 2031, for an estimated total cost of $1,005,901.89, which Ramos said includes all taxes, services and subscriptions.
The council was largely supportive of the contract, though Councilmember David Fenn had questions about data security and whether there were other agencies contracting with Axon for these services, to which Ramos said he was confident in the security of Axon’s systems and had spoken with other departments that contract with the company.
“We’re not the guinea pig on this, it’s a proven program,” he said. “As soon as I talked to those agencies that speak very highly of it, it was something I wanted to bring into our testing process.”
In other council action: Ahead of the start of Tuesday’s regular meeting, the council voted to appoint Mayor Pro Tem Jessica Voigt as mayor and Councilmember Lloyd White as mayor pro tem for the next year.
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