Boston Police Body Cams: "We have not ruled out a pilot"

Mayor Walsh, what will you say the next time that we have a police-involved shooting and we don’t have body cam footage to let us know what happened there?

Mayor Walsh: "...We have not ruled out a pilot..."

Watch: @marty_walsh answers your questions with @LiamWBZ @PaulaEbbenWBZ http://t.co/ZSMivhMWrt pic.twitter.com/JiIOKg6LEK

— WBZ Boston News (@cbsboston) August 13, 2015

On Wednesday, August 12, Mayor Marty Walsh did his first weekly segment called "Mayor Marty Walsh Answers Your Questions" on WBZ News at 10 on TV38. Watch

Here's the transcript from the question about police body cams.:

Liam Martin, WBZ: Body cameras on police have been in the news. The city is now considering putting some body cameras on police. You have been lukewarm on this issue. We want to take a viewer question on this. Ian asks

"What will you say the next time that we have a police-involved shooting and we don’t have body cam footage to let us know what happened there?"

Mayor Marty Walsh:

I'm hoping that we don’t have a police-involved shooting in Boston.

Liam Martin, WBZ: What if we do?

Mayor Marty Walsh: If we do, certainly situations that I get concerned about every single day. I know that we're working on the relationship side on the community. But as far as body cams are going we're certainly, we're looking at what's happening around the country, we're looking at what's happening here in Massachusetts. Worcester has body cameras, and we want to see the results of what the body camera actually proves and does. In part, we're going to look at putting together some type of commission or something to study this. And we certainly, myself and commissioner Evans have been open to a pilot.

We have not ruled out a pilot.

And most of them have been pilots. The cost if we body cam every police officer in the city would be $3 million to buy the equipment and two million dollars annually. And then we have to create a new division in the police department to store the film and come up with proper procedures."

Last December, Mayor Walsh said he opposed police body cams. Within days he changed his position to being open to a pilot.

Eight months to the day, Boston City Council held a hearing on police body cams called by Councilor Jackson and Councilor Yancey at which the commissioner said he was open to a pilot, and "Don't shove it down our throats." The commissioner also said he wanted to wait and learn from others.

If the message you're getting is that the police commissioner wants to drag his feet and the Mayor is just fine with that, you're hitting the mark.

Maybe next Wednesday Liam Martin will ask Mayor Walsh whether the police body cam pilot will start by December (...because it really shouldn't take more than a year to get your shit together for a pilot.)

What's the over/under on whether the next Boston Police-involved shooting is recorded on body cam video, and what will Marty Walsh say if it isn't and only one eyewitness survived?