Baltimore Police Department Begins Body Camera Pilot Program

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUJkRg2P1aE

The Baltimore Police Department began its two-month body camera pilot program Monday.

A total of 155 Baltimore police officers will be wearing cameras during the testing phase.

The program will test cameras from three vendors before one is chosen for use citywide. Officers will be responsible for activating the cameras before interacting with civilians and for uploading the footage to cloud-based storage provided by the vendors. People being recorded can request that officers turn off their cameras, officials said.

But the department declined to release the “draft policy” it developed to govern how and when officers use their cameras, how officers can respond to citizen requests not to be filmed, how the department plans to use the footage, and who will have access to the recordings. Those issues have been debated nationally and raise thorny legal questions, including around citizens’ privacy concerns.

“We are working from a draft right now because we want to fine-tune that policy to make sure that, as we experience this pilot program, we’re going to learn and the community is going to learn,” Deputy Commissioner Dean Palmere told The Baltimore Sun. “We will be transparent moving forward and we will answer the community’s questions in regards to what the policy suggests that we do at this point.”

For more information on the story, please visit BaltimoreSun.com.