Austin Police To Start Wearing Body Cameras Starting Next Year

Austin Mayor Steve Adler said he will push up the date that the Austin Police Department will get body cameras from 2017 to next year.

“Waiting until 2017 is too long,” Adler said at a forum on race relations and policing at the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex in East Austin last week, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

It will cost $11 million to outfit the city’s 1,800 police officers with body cameras. Adler said that 20 officers currently wear body cameras.

Last fall, Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder told KXAN that he supports body cameras for officers. “There’s no perfect system out there. So take what’s available, many (police agencies) are already doing this – I don’t hear complaints from them. Let’s go do it,” he said

The issue of body cameras for law enforcement has been brought to the forefront in light of several police officer-related shootings, including the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last year, and the choking death of Eric Garner in New York City.

The American Civil Liberties Union has come out in support of body cameras for law enforcement.

“We’re against pervasive government surveillance, but when cameras primarily serve the function of allowing public monitoring of the government instead of the other way around, we generally support their use. While we have opposed government video surveillance of public places, for example, we have supported the installation of video cameras on police car dashboards, in prisons, and during interrogations,” the group said on its website.

More than 500 people attended the forum, which included a panel featuring Adler, Council Member Ora Houston, Police Chief Art Acevedo, Police Monitor Margo Frasier, Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, civil rights attorney Adam Loewy and community activist Meme Styles.

[PHOTO: Emergency Service Pipes And Drums Association]