Police Commissioner William Bratton on Thursday shared details about the New York City Police Department’s pilot program for equipping police officers with body cameras.
Bratton said the department discussed the body camera issue in March with the Los Angeles Police Department, which already uses them.
The Axon Flex and the LE3, which capture video and audio and have what the police commissioner called good storage capability, are the two types of cameras that will be used.
The cameras will be used in the areas where there were the highest number of stop-and-frisk encounters.
Bratton said the pilot program in Los Angeles has been successful and that he’s ready to move forward in New York, but he added that there are still major issues involving policy and cost.
No hard timetable was discussed.
The department was ordered to test the cameras by a federal judge after she ruled that police violated the constitution by stopping and frisking a much larger percentage of blacks and Latinos.
The number of cities using body cameras has grown in recent years as the technology has improved.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said the cameras should be a win-win for police and communities, as long as their use is limited to addressing abuse complaints.
The group, though, said it does have privacy concerns, saying, in part, “The NYPD has a long history of engaging in surveillance of innocent New Yorkers, and body cameras can’t become yet another tool for massive police surveillance. Safeguards must be in place to protect the privacy of both officers and the public.”
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