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Walsh, police union agree to extend body-camera pilot six more months
By adamg on Sun, 03/12/2017 - 10:24pm
The Dorchester Reporter reports.
On Wednesday, the City Council approved a new contract with the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association that lets the city and the union re-open the contract section dealing with body cameras - for example, to negotiate department-wide use of them - without re-opening all of the rest of the contract.
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Comments
A good start
The Boston Police once again show their professionalism by listening to their communities and working with them as partners. But fair is fair and MSP,Transit, and all the campus police in the city of Boston should be mandated to wear body-cameras.
Not really BPD threw up every
Not really BPD threw up every excuse the book to delay the implementation of the camera program and demanded amendments to their contract. Most other police departments around the country did not throw similar tantrums. They enjoy having power and privileges as a "special" class in the city. Equal protection under the law doesn't apply in Boston thanks to the City Council, Mayor, and Police Commissioner carving out all sorts of "rights for me but not thee exceptions" for BPD. Thankfully the courts have managed to find some common sense on occasion and smack parts of this down.
http://legacy.wbur.org/2012/03/27/recording-officers-settlement
Walsh Kicks-The-Can on Body Cam Pilot But Not New Contract
If you recall, the mayor and the commissioner had to go to court to get the BPPA to stop playing games and participate in a police body cam pilot. Prior to the beginning of the body cam pilot, BPD was not cooperative.
So what does Walsh do when the pilot is over? He runs another 6-month pilot and sends the new BPPA contract to City Council for approval thereby squandering the leverage the contract gave the city in getting the union to agree to body cams.
Rather than withholding the new contract, the city signed-off on the package without body cams They had to make it look like this was all just good management so they pitch the story about collecting more data, independent analysis and reopening the contract for body cams in September.
If they had to extend the pilot because they can't agree on terms that's fine but don't give them the dept. the new contract until the city gets what it wants in return. Thanks to Marty the city lost its leverage.