- Alex Garland
- When will Seattle police officers be wearing body cameras? A lot of protesters want the answer to be “now!” But it’s more like “soon.”
Lately, it’s hard to find somebody who isn’t talking about putting cameras on cops. Seattle City Council members, protesters, President Obama—they all want them, especially in the wake of the non-indictments of police officers who were involved in the deaths of Mike Brown (an unarmed 18-year-old shot at least six times by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri) and Eric Garner (dead after a New York City officer used a banned choke-hold maneuver on him).
There’s good reason why the technology is getting a lot of talk. Not only do body-worn cameras offer a chance to re-watch events in which citizens and officers disagree about what happened—or a citizen is no longer alive to tell his or her side—but early research also shows that body cams can put everyone involved on their best behavior. That could mean fewer uses of force and fewer citizen complaints, which would be welcome by everyone.
Officers are already wearing body cameras, permanently or in temporary pilot programs, in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and cities across Washington…
