by Anita Baffoni, WPRO News
The Providence Police Department is one step closer in implementing a program requiring patrolmen to wear a body camera. A $375,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Justice will go towards purchasing 250 cameras for Providence Police, however the program cannot be implemented without the city or another funding source matches the grant.
The Public Safety Commissioner says the cost of the program, including data storage, will cost upwards of $400,000 annually.
The body cam policy requires officers to manually turn on and off the camera, which members of the ACLU find troubling.
“Under this policy, police have broad discretion in when to turn the cameras on and off, allowing for law enforcement to choose to turn body cameras on after an incident has commenced and the body cameras can no longer shed much-needed light on a situation,” the ACLU said in a statement. “Beyond immediate officer safety concerns, any subjectivity in decisions to turn body cameras on or off raises concerns about what is not being captured by cameras, and why.”
“While the policy encompasses many of the instances in which a body camera should be activated, unintentional gaps in the ‘Body Worn Camera Activation Parameters’ leave law enforcement open to allegations of subjective body camera use and may fail to capture many of the instances in which body cameras may be most helpful,” the ACLU statement continued.
Police Chief Hugh Clements says if officers do not turn on the camera during any calls they respond to, they will get a verbal warning and if they continue, they will be disciplined accordingly.
“This isn’t a game of ‘got you.’ We are not going to be reviewing tapes at random. When there is a complaint we will look at the tape and we trying to figure out what happened,” Clements said during a media briefing Tuesday. “We are trying to make ourselves a better agency.”
He added that the video footage will not be given out to the public unless there is a complaint filed and releasing the video will be made on a case-by-case basis.
Ten officers used the body cameras in the summer as part of the pilot program and Clements says with their testimony and through community outreach, they have drafted a policy he believes is “solid.” Clements also looked to similar policies from police departments across the country.
Providence Police plans to buy the equipment from TASER International, one of the two companies that participated in the pilot program.
