By James Nash
(Bloomberg) — Los Angeles will buy 7,000 body cameras for police officers to guard against misconduct and false allegations, Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Katzenberg, Activision Blizzard Inc. CEO Bobby Kotick and Occidental Petroleum Corp. chief Stephen Chazen were among about two dozen individuals who contributed $1.35 million of the $1.6 million cost for the first 700 cameras, Police Commission President Steven Soboroff said in an interview.
The shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and the weeks of racial unrest that followed in the St. Louis suburb and other cities, stirred interest in the cameras. Los Angeles, the second most-populous U.S. city, with about 10,000 officers, will be the largest police force with video recorders across the board.
“What happens in Ferguson, a town not even the size of one of the police divisions in L.A., affects us here,” Police Chief Charlie Beck said of controversies over police conduct. “We’re stepping up.”
Beck said incidents in Ferguson and elsewhere highlight the need for the most objective evidence on police performance. The cameras will be used during arrests and traffic stops, not witness interviews or other sensitive situations, he said.
President Barack Obama has requested $263 million to train local police departments and make matching grants for 50,000 body cameras. New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said in September that 60 New York officers will wear body cameras as part of a pilot program.
King Tape
Videos of police in action have grown common since the 1991 beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles officers was caught on tape. Despite the recording, a jury acquitted three of the officers and a mistrial was declared for the fourth. The decision led to a week of riots that killed more than 50 people.
Likewise in New York, a bystander recorded the death of Eric Garner, a black Staten Island man, after a chokehold by New York police Officer Daniel Pantaleo. A state grand jury this month declined to charge Pantaleo. Protests followed across the U.S., with demonstrators chanting or carrying signs with Garner’s last words: “I can’t breathe.”
Garcetti said Los Angeles police will start with about 700 Axon Flex cameras from Taser International Inc., based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Officers will begin wearing them in early 2015, once the police department’s civilian oversight board approves a policy on their use. In addition to individual donors, Soboroff said the nonprofit Police Foundation contributed $250,000 to the purchase of the first units.
‘Time to Act’
“The more facts and evidence we have, the easier it is to get to the truth,” Garcetti said during a press conference at police headquarters. “The time to act is now.”
Garcetti said he’ll add money in next year’s budget to buy 7,000 cameras, enough to equip all Los Angeles police officers, by July 2016. The mayor, who said he expects the additional cameras to cost almost $10 million, said the city will apply for federal funds to defray as much as half the cost.
“With this program, L.A. will be a national leader in the use of these cameras,” Garcetti’s office said in a statement. “While events in Ferguson and President Obama’s call have brought this issue recent national attention, Mayor Garcetti’s administration has been moving forward on the use of on-body cameras for over one year.” – BLOOMBERG
