LA police attempt to improve relations with body cams
Sep 1, 2015, 7:58 AM | Updated: 12:02 pm
(AP)
For nearly 25 years, the Los Angeles Police Department has been trying to restore trust.
“Kids ran away from us screaming, ‘They’re gonna arrest us, they’re here to arrest us,'” Captain Phillip Tingirides said.
So the department made a culture change, and will soon become the largest police department in the country to equip every officer with a body camera.
By the end of next year, the Los Angeles Police Department will have 7,000 body cameras in the field with the hope that once there is an objective record of arrests and traffic stops, the doubts about the truthfulness of police reports will finally melt away.
Captain Tingirides has been with the LAPD for 35 years. He was with the force during the Rodney King riots, through corruption scandals, and he knows how hard it is to rebuild trust.
“There is no quick fix to changing culture. We had to change the culture in the community and we had to change the culture in the police department. Those things take time,” he said.
It began seven years ago placing officers in schools, not just to patrol but to participate.
“Officers were going every single Friday, we were reading in the classes,” Tingirides said. “It completely changed the dynamics of the relationship.”
They also made connections with community activists like Iona Diggs, who told CBS News Correspondent Mireya Villarreal that without an effective police force, the criminals take over.
“I would come home from work and the drug dealers were sitting on my porch. And I said, ‘I’ve had enough. This is enough.’ So, I called LAPD,” Diggs said, further noting what police did differently to change their presence in the neighborhood.
“More patrol, better patrol,” she said. “They got out and got to know people. I want people to realize that if you work with the LAPD, you can get stuff done.”
The total cost for the 7,000 cameras could run to $11 million. The payback on that investment? When kids see an officer, they no longer feel the need to run, unless they’ve actually broken the law.