Body cameras – the hottest ticket in the country after burning or shooting the Confederate flag — are on the way to the Culver City Police Dept., perhaps within a year. But another seeing-eye must be established first.
“Currently we are in the process of implementing the in-car camera system in our (dozen) vehicles first,” says Capt. Allen Azran. “We have to get completely done with that.”
How does a 27-year veteran feel about the introduction of seeing-eyes, not only in every car, but on his chest and everywhere he goes?
Are body cams, which caught fire after Ferguson 10 months ago, a solution to the late controversies?
“In this modern era of media access to everything – cameras everywhere, on buildings, on streetlights, privately owned cameras, publicly owned cameras – some portion of most police activity is going to be captured,” Mr. Azran said. “We are now outfitting our cars to where we now are the ones generating footage of our activities to a much greater extent. Body cameras are one more step in furtherance of that.
“Before we were relying only on what was being captured by a stationary camera that may or may not be around.”
Capt. Azran calls body cameras “an eventuality in this day and age. Body cameras will become a best-practice. They will be utilized by all police agencies.”
(To be continued)
