Boston Police Body Cam Pilot Shows Signs of Poor Management, Lack of Commitment

Commissioner William Evans' statements about the police body cam initiative have wavered over time, from 2014 to present,

"[We] are worried about its impact on our
relationship with the community. I fear that
not a lot of people... might not want to have
that interaction with us if they knew they're
on camera..."
Dec 3, 2014, Boston Herald

"We haven't ruled them out."
Jan 13, 2015, WGBH Boston Public Radio

"They're going to happen."
Sep 15, 2015 WGBH, Greater Boston

"I hope by April we can get them up and running."
Oct 26, 2015 WGBH, Boston Public Radio

"I am hoping the result is
the community can see more of less
that maybe we don't need them."
March 31, 2016 Herald Radio

metro.us:

The city plans to equip 100 officers with the cameras — about one in 20 officers on the force — for six months beginning in May or June as part of a pilot program.

But even as Bostonians got the chance to weigh in at a series of informal public meetings this week, exactly how those cameras will be used is still unclear.

“We’re asking all these questions about the pilot and people don’t have answers,” said Segun Idowu, co-organizer of the Boston Police Camera Action Team, which has been advocating for the cameras since 2014. “And we’re a month away.”

Among them: whether police will be allowed to film inside people’s homes; whether footage of situations involving domestic abuse, children or the mentally ill will be taken; where, how and for how long all the police camera data will be stored.

But the chief concern from BPCAT and others is that the results of the pilot may be tainted. That’s because right now the only officers who will wear the cameras are those who volunteer to do so.

The “data will be skewed,” Idowu said, because “only the officers who are doing really, really great work” will sign up for the pilot, Idowu said. “And not the officers that we’re trying to hold accountable.”