Malden Police Body Camera Program Launches Monday

MALDEN, MA — Malden police officers were due to begin wearing body cameras on Monday roughly a year after the city moved to implement a body camera policy in 2021, Mayor Gary Christenson and Police Chief Glenn Cronin announced on Thursday of last week.

Officers are wearing body cameras during dispatched calls for service and officer-initiated interactions such as traffic stops, according to Christenson and Cronin’s announcement.

The city previously finalized an agreement with its police officers as part of efforts to introduce body cameras.

“That agreement represents the strong commitment by the Mayor and the Police Department in using all available tools and resources to keep our community and our police officers safe in a way that is fair, impartial, and transparent,” Christenson and Cronin said in their joint statement last week.

Malden received roughly $95,000 in grant money to back its body camera program. Now with cameras and necessary cloud storage infrastructure in place, the police are set to begin working with their cameras.

Body camera footage will be subject to state public records law. A new Malden Police Video Evidence Unit, meanwhile, will handle maintenance of body camera equipment, software and cloud storage. The unit will additionally handle records requests related to body cameras, as noted by Christenson and Cronin.

Body cameras have quickly proliferated through police departments in recent years after criticism and controversy over incidents of police brutality in various departments across the country.

In Massachusetts, the state recently convened its own body camera task force, which shared a report in August laying out new guidelines aimed at supporting body camera initiatives and promoting police transparency through body camera use.

Malden was one of 64 police departments across Massachusetts to receive state funding last year to fund body camera programs.

Close to Malden, Chelsea, Wakefield and Woburn all also won money.