People use cellphone cameras to record everything these days, and that's causing major headaches for the New York Police Department. Recent cellphone videos have captured NYPD cops in compromising situations, and activists want the police to step up their use of body-worn cameras.
The city's Public Advocate Letitia James called on the NYPD to launch a pilot program to test body-worn cameras at precincts with high rates of police misconduct complaints, according to NY1. The pilot program would cost $5 million and $32 million to outfit the entire department, according to a report from the Public Advocate's office. The cameras cost between $450 and $900 each.
"When you compare $152 million in judgments that we paid out last year compared to $32 million if we were to do this citywide, there would be some savings, and obviously it would improve police-community relations," James said. Taxpayers footed the $152 million bill to pay NYPD-related tort claims in 2013.
Under James' plan, the pilot program would go into effect at precincts with the highest number of Civilian Complaint Review Board complaints," according to the Gothamist. Those precincts include the 73rd and 75th in East New York, the 79th in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the 40th and 44th in the Bronx, and the 120th in Staten Island. The latter is the precinct where Eric Garner died after cops appeared to place him in a chokehold, according to the New York Daily News.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said last year he would want cameras on his officers, according to The New York Times.
"So much of what goes in the field is 'he-said-she-said,' and the camera offers an objective perspective," Bratton said. "Officers not familiar with the technology may see it as something harmful. But the irony is, officers actually tend to benefit. Very often, the officer's version of events is the accurate version."
Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin instituted a similar one-year pilot program last year, according to the Daily News. Officers at five NYPD precincts wore body cameras. The precincts chosen represented those with the most stop-and-frisks in 2012.
The cameras "should also alleviate some of the mistrust that has developed between the police and the black and Hispanic communities... (and) will be equally helpful to members of the NYPD who are wrongly accused of inappropriate behavior," Scheindlin wrote in her decision.
The Public Advocate's report noted that one in six police departments in America use body-worn cameras. Major cities like Los Angeles, Cleveland, Detroit and San Francisco are all testing such cameras.
