Some D.C. police officers could be wearing body-mounted cameras as soon as Oct. 1 as part of a pilot program testing their viability for the entire police force, according to Metro Police Department spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump.
Discussions surrounding the use of cameras broached national debate after the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., this August. D.C. suburb Laurel, Md. was one of the first police departments nationwide to require their use. Last Thursday, the New York Police Department began a 60-officer body camera trial program.
According to Crump, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier was behind the decision to implement a test body camera program, testifying to their usefulness at a budget hearing earlier this year.
“This has been underway for nearly 18 months,” wrote Crump in an email to the Voice. “The Department is committed to implementing a body-camera program, and developing a comprehensive policy to govern all aspects of the initiative.”
A one-year study of the 115-member police force of Rialto, Calif. found that that both use of force by officers and complaints about officers declined after each officer was required to wear a camera. The nonprofit Police Foundation, which conducted the study, concluded that both officers and citizens were more civil to one another when cameras were filming.
Questions remain about whether recording should be universally mandatory, or whether recording should be left to individual officer’s discretion.
Delroy Burton, chairman of the D.C. police union, said in an interview with the Washington Post that the cameras should always be recording. Giving the officer the power to turn off the camera, “lends itself to the accusation of selective recording—that the officer is unilaterally selecting what to record and what not to record.”
