BY KEVIN SAWYER – Despite formal resistance from both officers and their union, the Boston Police Department has become one of the last major police departments in the country to start wearing body cameras. Last week, a judge, after much previous legal wrangling, ordered the department to begin the pilot program.
The controversy began two years ago when Boston police commissioner, William Evans, stated that Boston police officers were not going to wear body cams because he didn’t see how that would help relations between the police and the citizenry of the city. A year later, however, he relented and then it was several more months as the Boston police union tried to figure out how they were going to do it. Finally, in July, the union thought they had a deal they could live with. They would have 100 volunteer police officers begin to wear the body cameras on a six month trial basis.
Then, a funny thing happened. No Boston cops volunteered to wear the cameras. The Boston politicians became furious and ordered the trial program and that they would choose the 100 who would participate in the program. The union sued and everything, of course, ended up in the courts. The Boston judge, David Wilkins, ruled in favor of the politicians stating that the union didn’t really make much of an effort to recruit volunteers to get the program underway.
The program has begun despite further protestations by the police union. The union tried to argue certain research that showed that wearing body cameras has increased physical attacks against police. The judge replied that the data they spoke of was inconclusive and a rise in violent resistance to the police could not be laid at the feet of body cameras.
The union also argued with the judge saying that the cameras were a huge change in the working conditions of these officers and that a new contract and bargaining agreement had to be hashed out. The judge actually cited Massachusetts law which gives the police commissioner sole discretion over the uniforms and equipment used by the force.
So, in the end, the union was defeated and 100 Boston police officers were forced to begin wearing body cameras.
PHOTOS BY: New York Daily News / Boston Police Department