Axon has announced that the United States Forest Service (USFS) will outfit officers and agents across its law enforcement and investigative agency with Axon Body 2 cameras backed by the digital evidence management system, Axon Evidence (Evidence.com). The USFS has been a TASER Conducted Energy Weapon customer since 2008 and began an agencywide deployment of TASER X26Ps in 2018. USFS Law Enforcement and Investigations is the first federal law enforcement agency to adopt Axon's full less-lethal ecosystem. This order was received in the third quarter of 2019 and will deploy in multiple phases.
In addition to the Axon Body 2 cameras, the USFS also ordered Axon Signal Performance Power Magazine (SPPM), a CEW battery that alerts cameras on the Axon network to begin recording when the safety is in the "armed" position. The SPPM will be incorporated into all TASER X26P CEWs deployed across the agency.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Forest Service, the first federal agency to deploy Axon’s ecosystem of life-saving technologies across their law enforcement enterprise,” says Richard Coleman, Axon’s VP and GM, Federal. “The Forest Service’s mission to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the 193 million acres of our nation's forests and grasslands is uniquely critical and important and it's a mission we at Axon are proud to support.”
USFS adoption of the Axon network represents an important milestone in Axon’s entry into the federal civilian law enforcement market, which has more than 120,000 officers who are authorized to make arrests and carry firearms, according to the US Justice Dept.