The Honolulu Police Department is now equipping all 500 of its Tasers with video cameras that have night-vision capabilities, the department said today.

Police officials said the move is to show the community how the nonlethal weapons are used, but also to offer some protection to officers and the police department against lawsuits.

"We have had zero complaints about our Taser deployments," HPD Chief Boisse Correa said. "But if we were to end up in court in civil litigation over the use of a Taser, the cameras will help justify appropriate action was taken. ... One litigation and it pays for itself. If you save one life, the taser will pay for itself one or two times over."

Officers on O'ahu deployed Tasers 61 times last year, including six times on animals. Three of those cases remain under internal investigation for not following proper protocol. This year, Tasers have been used twice during assaults on officers and once on a woman who was cutting herself with a knife and attempting to commit suicide.

So far no city money has funded HPD's tasers. Of the 229 originally purchased, 25 were donated by the Honolulu Police Foundation. The rest, including 271 the department received in January, have come through the Justice Department's federal law enforcement grants. Correa said the goal is to equip all 1,700 HPD field officers with camera tasers.

Currently, there are just 54 available for use in each of the eight police districts.

"It's costly," Correa said, "but it's worth it. We've added the additions to the city budget, but we don't know when we'll get all of them."

The cameras on the tasers can tape up to 90 minutes and adjust to lighting automatically.