Body Cameras in Polk County: Who Has Them, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters to Your Case

For the past year and a half I have tracked body-camera adoption across Polk County in a running series of short posts. This article puts the whole picture in one place — who has cameras, who does not, and why the answer matters if you are charged with a crime here.

The Ledger reported on November 4 that the Lakeland Police Department’s body cameras are finally in the building. The department has received its 250 cameras and tested them. Then Axon, the vendor on Lakeland’s $9.3 million contract, shipped the wrong magnetic mounts. The proper equipment is expected in three to five weeks, and the department is still waiting on charging docks. So the cameras are close. The delay is now about parts, not policy — the rules for using them have already been adopted.

That update matters because of where the rest of the county stands. Some Polk County agencies have been recording for months. One agency — the largest in the county — records nothing at all, and has no plans to start.

Which Polk County agencies have body cameras right now?

Here is the scorecard as of November 2022. When Lakeland officials unanimously approved their $9.3 million camera package on December 6, 2021, Lake Wales was the only agency in Polk County already wearing body cameras. Winter Haven came next: its city commissioners approved the purchase in June 2021, and its officers started using cameras this past spring. Haines City followed — I spoke with that department myself back in May, and they told me their cameras had just come in and were being tested. Lakeland, as described above, is weeks away from putting cameras on its officers, along with new in-vehicle cameras.

Then there is the Polk County Sheriff’s Office: no body cameras, no vehicle cameras, and no plans to implement either. Note the pattern. City by city, department by department, Polk County law enforcement is adopting cameras. The holdout is not a small agency on the edge of the county. It is the largest law enforcement agency in Polk County, the one that patrols everything outside the city limits.

Why doesn’t the Sheriff’s Office have cameras?

Sheriff Grady Judd is skeptical of the benefits. In statements to the media, he has expressed concerns with “unintended consequences” from the use of body cameras, and he has said he is “not convinced that the need for cameras outweighs your personal privacy.” That is his position, and he has held it consistently while the cities around him bought cameras.

Whatever you make of that reasoning, understand what it means in practice. If a deputy stops you on US 27 south of Frostproof, or searches your car on SR 60 outside Bartow, there will almost certainly be no video of the encounter. If a Lakeland officer makes the same stop on Memorial Boulevard a few months from now, there will be. Same facts, same law — but in one case a judge can watch what actually happened, and in the other the case comes down to the officer’s report and your word. In Polk County today, the existence of video evidence is decided by which side of a city limit you were driving on.

Why does body-camera footage matter to your case?

From a criminal defense lawyer’s perspective, cameras are good. In well over half of the cases that I handle, body cameras or some other form of video or audio evidence would have been good for the case. That has been my position since this debate began, and it is worth explaining why.

Start with motions to suppress. A suppression motion usually turns on small factual details: what the officer said when he ordered you out of the car, whether you were told you were free to leave, whether consent to search was actually given, how long the stop dragged on and why. Without video, those questions are resolved in a contest of memory — and the only written account was written by the officer. Video changes the posture of the entire hearing. This is so because the court no longer has to reconstruct the encounter from paperwork and recollection; the encounter is simply played.

Also, consider DUI stops. Field sobriety exercises are graded by the officer who administered them. The report may say you swayed, stepped off the line, or missed heel-to-toe. On video, a judge or jury can watch the exercises and decide for themselves whether the grading was fair. Video cuts both ways — sometimes it confirms the report. But you are entitled to know which it is, and without a camera you never will.

How does the defense get the footage?

Florida gives defendants broad discovery rights. Under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.220, once the defense files a notice of discovery, the State must disclose the evidence in its possession within a short window — including your recorded statements, police and investigative reports, tangible items, and information that tends to negate guilt. Body-camera recordings of your stop, search, and arrest fall comfortably within those obligations. This is important because the footage does not have to help the State for you to see it. If it exists, the defense gets it.

But a discovery rule cannot produce a recording that was never made. That is why activation policy matters as much as the hardware. When Lakeland first signaled it would buy cameras, I wrote that officers will need to be trained and monitored on when and how they turn these cameras off and on. It will not do the community any good if officers can easily “forget” to turn the cameras on, or fail to operate them properly, without repercussions. Expect defense lawyers to scrutinize the gaps: recordings that start late, recordings that end early, cameras that were never activated at all. A missing recording is itself a fact — and it is a fact your lawyer can use.

What should you take from all of this?

Who has them: Lake Wales, Winter Haven, Haines City, and — in a matter of weeks — Lakeland. Who doesn’t: the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. If you are arrested in Polk County, one of the first questions your lawyer should ask is which agency made the stop, because that answer now determines whether video of the encounter exists at all. If it exists, demand it, watch it, and measure the report against it. If it does not, that absence shapes the defense too. Either way, the time to act is early — footage helps no one if nobody asks for it.

Editor’s update (July 2026): Lakeland’s cameras arrived on roughly the schedule described above. LPD began issuing body-worn cameras to sworn officers in December 2022, starting with patrol, under a policy that took effect October 3, 2022, and by February 2023 the department had issued 176 of its 250 cameras. The Sheriff’s Office is a different story: Sheriff Judd continued to publicly oppose body cameras through his 2024 re-election, and in preparing this update we found no announcement that PCSO has adopted them.

Legally reviewed by Tonmiel Rodriguez — last reviewed July 20, 2026.

Tonmiel Rodriguez is a criminal defense attorney in Bartow and is Board Certified in Criminal Trial Law by The Florida Bar. He defends DUI, drug, gun, and violent-crime cases across Polk, Highlands, Hardee, Osceola, and Hillsborough Counties. If body-camera footage — or the absence of it — could shape your case, call The Rodriguez Law Office at (863) 774-4556.