Police begin wider body camera use after months of testing

BOSTON (AP) — After months of testing, many of the nation's big-city police forces are planning to expand their use of body cameras by the summer, but the number of officers with such gear will still be relatively small, an Associated Press review found.

The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other deaths at the hands of police around the U.S. have led to demands that officers be issued wearable cameras to deter misconduct and document shootings and other clashes.

Police have warned that processing, reviewing and storing huge amounts of digital footage will require more manpower and entail significant costs.

The department, which rolled out 860 cameras last year, now hopes to meet its goal by the fall of 2017, at the earliest.

[...] in Nassau County on Long Island, New York, the police officers' union late last year halted a small pilot effort, arguing to a state labor panel that the department imposed the plan without negotiating.

Baltimore, which erupted in riots last year following the death of Freddie Gray from a spinal injury suffered in police custody, expects to have 500 officers using them by this month, or about 17 percent of its force.

Many policies don't adequately address privacy and civil rights concerns, such as when officers should activate the cameras, how long video should be stored and when the public can see it, they say.

In Los Angeles, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union and others last month came out against the department's body-camera guidelines because, among other things, they say the release of footage to the public is up to the police chief, unless ordered by the courts.