Plan delayed for Seattle bike police to wear body cams
Dec 29, 2016, 3:04 PM | Updated: 6:37 pm
Seattle Police Department planned to roll out body cameras to a small group of bicycle officers on Thursday, but administrators changed their minds and delayed it.
The plan was for 15 to 20 bike officers working out of the West Precinct to wear them as the department worked to expand their use.
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Those officers received their training on Tuesday with the cameras about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
“The public will also know when it’s on because there will be a visible light when they’re recording,” said Nick Zajchowski, who’s managing the project for Seattle police.
The multimillion-dollar body camera program has been caught up in debates over privacy and how to best implement them.
What to know about support for the SPD body camera program
The department, which finished a small pilot program this summer in which a dozen officers used body cameras, plans to have nearly 850 officers wearing body cameras by the end of 2017.
The City of Seattle has set aside $4.6 million over the next two years for the body cameras. A federal grant allotted $600,000 for body cameras.
Seattle Police Department Chief Kathleen O’Toole said in 2015 that the they had a moral obligation to do body cameras.
“Police officers are safer. People in our communities are safer, less likely to have use of force incidents and complaints against police,” she said.
In a recent survey done for the department, 92 percent of people responding say they support officers wearing the body cameras.
What to know about concern with the program
More than 50 police departments across the state have experimented with body cameras, but few actually use the devices daily. There has been widespread concern related to release of the video and privacy protections.
Both Stuckey and the ACLU question whether putting cameras on officers will actually offer the public better transparency into the department.
“We think that SPD and our city’s leadership should hit the brakes a little bit and consider what should really happen before we make a step and a big investment in body cameras,” said Shankar Narayan, technology and liberty project director for the ACLU of Washington.
The ACLU says there needs to be greater community involvement before SPD expands the program.
