[C2C3PO]

There are FOIP retention requirements for everything.
Every single police report is kept on file indefinitely. When they switched from paper reports to electronic they had to hire 30+ more people ( originally had approx 12 clerks) to manually scan and enter all copies of all reports. Then they had to hire more people in the FOIP section to deal with the handling and retention and disclosure of it. This was repeated all the way down the line until it hit the IT Section which grew exponentially, etc, etc.
These are important records. If a flood or fire broke out or if there was some failure in the servers they MUST have multiple back up sources in different locations to safeguard this stuff.
So when bodycams came available they were all gung-ho to buy them for the frontline people until there was input from FOIP and the Legal Advisor's area on how long they would have to retain such video. At first they were told 3 years, then it went to 5 and last I heard it was 8 years. By now I'm sure its probably even longer.
Regardless given that fact that it is video and not small files the study showed that the IT infrastructure that would be required to be able to efficiently download the video content at the end of each shift meant massive changes to the existing IT infrastructure just to handle the bandwidth surge that would be needed to send securely. We aren't talking about buying cheap Cloud storage on a privately owned facility that may be prone to hacks,etc. I could go on and on with the details and how the projected costs for all this was so massive they had to defer until higher priority projects were funded like recruit classes to replace the Boomers that are all retiring now....
And don't forget this is all happening at a time when budgets are being cut more and more as they probably should be.
Fortunately the final decision did not rest with the agency in this particular case but rather with the Police Commission that is made up of civilians from all walks of life.
But as usual, for some of you, facts get in the way of your pre-determined narrative that seems to suggest there is always some dark hidden agenda to everything the police decide to do.

For those of you who just can't help yourself from posting some smart-ss retort about everything, perhaps first ask yourself if you have any actual useful, firsthand knowledge of the question being asked before offering up blind assumptions and cheap shots directed at the very people who had no input on making the actual decisions they are asked to live with.