Lawmaker says government should pay to equip police with body cameras

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement agencies around the country should buy body cameras for their officers rather than wait for Congress to provide the funding, Sen. Tim Scott said Tuesday.

The South Carolina Republican, whose hometown of North Charleston was the scene of an April 4 incident in which a white police officer was recorded fatally shooting an unarmed black man after a traffic stop, said he's working on legislation to provide federal money for the cameras. Until then, he said, cities and counties would be wise to buy their own to protect police and the public.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well then a video is worth a thousand pictures and untold lives," Scott told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.

Democrats and Republicans on the subcommittee were generally supportive of equipping law enforcement officers with the technology.

But Tuesday's hearing also raised questions about when the cameras should be turned on and off, when to publicly disclose the video they shoot, and whether they deter witnesses from stepping forward or invade crime victims' privacy.

"What did the officer choose to record, and what did he choose not to record?" asked Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "This is not as simple as it seems."

The hearing was in response to several recent incidents in which use of deadly force by police was caught on video. The officer involved in the April 4 shooting in North Charleston has been charged with murder.

Scott said a recent $20 million grant program for police body cameras announced by the Justice Department is a good step. He said he doesn't know how much it would cost to buy and maintain cameras for law enforcement officers around the country.

"Tasking the federal government to support body cameras through resources should not be confused with federalizing local policing, which I object to, nor is it an attempt to mandate the use of body cameras," Scott said. "Rather, it is an attempt to keep law enforcement officers and our communities safer."

Jarrod Bruder, executive director of the South Carolina Sheriffs' Association, said 15% of sheriffs' offices in the state have body cameras.

"Simply put, everyone — including the officer and the person interacting with the officer — tends to behave better when they know they are being filmed," Bruder said in prepared testimony.

But he also warned of some pitfalls, including cost and privacy.

Bruder said one county initially spent $600,000 to provide cameras to 250 deputies and now faces paying $600,000 in annual recurring expenses to maintain and store the video.

He also said that if Congress decides the federal government should pay to equip officers with body cameras, it shouldn't dictate the policies for using them.

"It is absolutely critical that law enforcement officers retain the ability to turn a camera off when it is necessary to protect the identity of an informant, a witness, or a victim," Bruder said.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, noted that police body cameras are "trained on the members of the community, not officers themselves."

"And heavily policed communities of color, where there are more police, will be more heavily recorded," he said.