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Cedar Park police now completely equipped with body cameras

“I think we’ve lost sight of what people really were looking for here”, said Mary Watkins, concerned citizen.

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Reviewing footage will sharpen officers’ recall of tense situations, POA president Martin Halloran proclaims, and will also “show the professionalism, courage, and restraint [police] display when faced with inappropriate behavior and the lack of respect [they] often endure”.

Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix also served as a member of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) Body Worn Camera Curriculum Development Committee. Officers in Patrol East will be trained on the cameras next.

During the year from March 2014 to February 2015, there was a 65 percent drop in complaints against officers who wore the cameras, according to the study, and a 53 percent reduction in incidents that required those officers to use force.

Equipping police with body cameras may be an effective way to improve the behavior of officers and the public with which they interact, a new study finds.

The cameras will cost an estimated $2.2 million to deploy and use over a five-year period.

Orlando Police Chief John Mina supports this push, and he’s getting help in the form of a roughly 0,000 federal grant for the equipment.

■No one will be allowed to edit original video.

Every officer will have their own camera, White said, and they will click the camera and battery into their assigned docking stations at the end of their shifts so the video will be downloaded and the battery fully recharged when they arrive for their next shift.

As SF Weekly reported last week, the Police Officers Association recently took to local airwaves to let listeners know that racial profiling doesn’t exist in San Francisco policing. With body cameras that number dropped to 1.6%… cut more than half.

Baird turns on his camera any time he’s on a call. Video will be stored for three years.

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Commissioner Marisabel Cabrera, who voted against the policy, says she doesn’t want officers to “have a cloud of suspicion hanging over them” due to a lack of video in controversial cases. “We now have video and audio information, and it’s not he said/she said anymore”, Longwell said.

Study Shows Less Violence, Fewer Complaints When Cops Wear Body Cameras