Atlanta police want 1,200 body cams

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• Maggie Lee??
• Dozens of activists listen to Atlanta Police Chief George Turner outline a plan for police body cams?

??The Atlanta Police Department is working on a pitch to buy some 1,200 body cameras to be worn by police officers, at a cost in the millions of dollars.?

“The plan is to have every uniformed officer deployed with a camera,” said APD Chief George Turner at a presentation to an Atlanta City Council committee Tuesday evening. He’s hoping to equip officers with the devices in the first quarter of 2015.?

“Our standard operating procedures would require our officers to activate cameras when they’re dispatched on certain calls,” said Turner.?

The APD has yet to finalize or publish rules on camera use and when, if ever, cameras would be turned off. They also need to decide lots of other issues, such as how long to hold data and when films would be made public.?

The force started testing body cameras earlier this year. A few dozen officers took three models into the field to test video quality, features, fit, data storage capacity and other measures. Officers wore them in jobs from narcotics to customer service in a 10-week program that finished in October.?

Cameras recorded during execution of search warrants, vehicle and pedestrian stops, interviews and other situations.?

The cameras will cost “north of” $1.2 million dollars, plus about $500,000 for the first year’s storage, said Turner, emphasizing that the figures are only estimates. Much of it depends on how long the data will be held and what kind of response the police get from their upcoming request for proposals.?

Such a big rollout and so soon, said Turner, would put Atlanta in the forefront of big city use of body cams.?

“As well it should be, we should be a leader,” said Councilwoman Felicia Moore, the first council member to urge use of body cameras.?

A few dozen activists attended the hearing. One, Faye Coffield, is a former APD officer.?

“I believe officers should be required to have the cameras on anytime they’re on duty,” either for the city or on extra jobs, she told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. “You have people who no longer trust the police.”?

The committee took no action nor held any vote; police made the presentation for information only.
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? EDITOR’S NOTE: To view our complete coverage on local protests and responses to police brutality, visit the #ShutitdownATL page.
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