Fourth in a series
Re “Body Cams May Not Paint Clear Picture – Azran”
What is the rush?
Twenty-seven years in law enforcement cause Capt. Allen Azran of the Culver City Police Dept. to be skeptical when radical new fads or products – such as body cameras — explode with bomb force.
Police officers are accustomed to performing their duties without friend or foe peeking around their shoulders.
Chief Scott Bixby’s department presently is in the process of installing in-car cameras in their dozen vehicles.
Since last summer’s racial flareups, a nosy, suspicious American public has forced body cameras onto departments large and small.
Agencies that resist are certain to be scorned.
While Chief Bixby paints a sunny portrait of department relations with the community, Culver City is expected to embrace body cameras within the year.
Capt. Azran says that body cams are not a magical panacea and besides, thorny legal issues are delaying an instant embrace of the technology.
Once the legal matters are satisfied, he says, “body cams will be a best-practice, a technology that law enforcement agencies will be utilizing.”
He said that “this will be another tool that we have that will enable us to get a better picture of events.”
Interestingly, though, relish was not served with Capt. Azran’s response.
If there is any cheering on Duquesne Avenue, it is of the quiet variety.
Capt. Azran was asked if police departments are more obligated to respond to public demands – such as accepting body cams – than they were in the ‘90s when he was a young officer.
“I don’t know if we are any more obligated today,” he said. “We are public agencies that are held accountable. We are supposed to be transparent.
“We are not any more obligated,” said Capt. Azran. The difference is that “today we recognize the importance of transparency and accountability. We are much better today in partnering with the community than we were 20 years ago in being open.
“The obligation always has been the same. The only difference is we have evolved and become much more in tune with our relationship with the community.”
