Police agencies nationwide and across Western New York are increasingly adding body cameras to their uniforms in response to public demands for more oversight of police.
"The benefit to the body camera is wherever I go, the camera goes," said Det. Thomas Dewey, NFTA Transit Police.
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Today South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will sign S.47, a body camera bill. The bill requires state and local law enforcement agencies in South Carolina to use body cameras and to develop body camera policies and procedures. It also establishes a “Body-Worn Cameras Fund” and prohibits police body camera footage from being accessed via Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests. The increased use of police body cameras is worthwhile, but limiting access to the footage hinders attempts to increase law enforcement accountability.
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When she testified at a hearing last month in favor of making police body-worn camera videos accessible to the public, the District’s chief open government advocate, Traci Hughes, suggested the police department’s reasoning for limiting access to the footage was flawed.
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The debate is underway in D.C. over making footage from police body cameras public.
City officials say a big challenge is blurring out certain images which they view as private.
The proposal by the mayor's office to keep all footage private is meeting resistance with the president of the D.C. Police Union as well as several government watchdog groups. Continue>>>
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