CRESTVIEW — Inside a new $1.2 million contract between the Crestview Police Department and Axon, a body camera provider, hides a $120,000 charge that will allow the department to provide body camera reports generated by artificial intelligence software.
Approved by the Crestview City Council on Dec. 8, the AI tool is designed to draft police reports from body-camera footage and to reduce the time officers spend typing.
Crestview Police Chief Stephen McCosker said the department views the software primarily as a time-saver.
“We believe that it’ll be a force multiplier, right, decreasing the amount of time that the officers are spending to actually physically type the reports out,” he said. The goal, he added, is to “increase their ability to do proactive policing.”
Artificial intelligence systems have drawn national scrutiny as more agencies test them, particularly after a police department in Utah mistakenly reported that an officer turned into a frog.
McCosker emphasized that Crestview’s software will not automatically submit reports and that multiple layers of human review are still required.
“No, it did not get submitted as is,” he said. “They need to be fact checked… and then it does not alleviate the responsibility of the sergeant to proofread the reports.”
The chief said he consulted the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, which has been using similar technology.
“One of the people that first introduced the product to me was Under Sheriff Charlie Nix, and we were talking about it at a lunch meeting,” McCosker said, adding that verification protocols were part of those discussions.
With the contract signed, Crestview’s next step is implementation and training.
“It’s been approved, and the contract was signed,” McCosker said. “I’m hoping [to introduce the system] by the end of the first quarter of 2026.”
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