All Albany police officers on patrol or responding to a call would be required to wear body cameras and to check that the units worked properly before the start of their shift under a comprehensive draft policy released by Chief Brendan Cox Friday. The city would be one of the first in the Capital Region that would require all its cops to use body cameras during all law enforcement actions, including arrests, traffic stops, street encounters, foot pursuits and prisoner transports. Albany's policy, which will be discussed at a public hearing on June 14, also requires all cops to complete training on how to use the devices and outlines no-recording stipulations meant to prevent collection of footage "to ridicule or embarrass anyone" or in sensitive interviews such as with sexual assault or juvenile victims. How long the digital audio-video recordings will be stored, who will have access to them and how the digital files can be distributed are matters still being shaped by the Albany Community Policing Advisory Committee that has been meeting for several months to hammer out details. The department's rank-and-file has been on board with adding the technology as a policing tool, as long as there is a balance that takes some privacy concerns into account. Body cameras have grown in use by local police agencies nationally in the wake of the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed black man shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., which set off violent demonstrations and nationwide protests. Putting police body cameras into use in Albany has also been accelerated by a public outcry in the wake of the controversial death of Donald "Dontay" Ivy on April 2, 2015. Albany's draft policy states that body cameras are "a tool to ensure accountability and transparency."
Comment on Albany police body cameras draft policy released
By Paul Grondahl, Times Union
Fri, 06/10/2016 - 11:15pm
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