Policing with body cameras
Police officers in Minneapolis have started wearing body cameras to record their interactions with the public.
Both police and civil rights advocates appear to like body cams because they collect evidence about the behavior of everyone involved in an incident or arrest, but there are open questions about the privacy of the videos that are recorded.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union is cautiously in favor of body cameras. In a policy paper from 2013, the ACLU's Jay Stanley writes:
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Although we generally take a dim view of the proliferation of surveillance cameras in American life, police on-body cameras are different because of their potential to serve as a check against the abuse of power by police officers.
MPR News Reporter Trisha Volpe reported on the first month of tests by the Minneapolis Police Department:
The policy does not require officers to turn the cameras on, or to keep them on. But so far, officers participating in the project have done a good job of using their discretion to operate the cameras, Glampe, the deputy chief, said.
Here's a sample video from the department that Volpe used in her story:
What do you think about the use of body cameras by police officers?