Opinion: Why spend $57 million on police body cameras if the footage won’t be available to the public?

To the editor: This week, the L.A. City Council’s Public Safety Committee voted in favor of a plan to buy body cameras to outfit more than 7,000 officers. In urging a yes vote, Councilman Joe Buscaino stated that officers want the cameras “so they can show the public the professionalism, the courtesy they employ every day.” (Re “L.A. approves police body cameras,” June 23)

In contrast, police unions throughout the state are supporting pending legislation that would give an individual officer the right to challenge in court the release of any video in which he or she is depicted.

So, spending $57 million on body cameras may be a complete waste of money, particularly when LAPD Chief Charlie Beck says he has “no plans to release video footage” from dashcams or body cams to the public.

Noel Johnson, Glendale

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To the editor: If an employer has to watch an employee eight hours a day, then that employer likely hired the wrong person.

The LAPD is on the verge of spending millions of dollars for body cameras.

A better course of action would be to examine LAPD hiring policies and those who make hiring decisions. Keeping the miscreants out of the mix is much preferable to finding and removing them later.

Bob Munson, Newbury Park

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To the editor: The police clearly do not wish to release any videos of police in action. They wish us to trust that what they are doing is A-OK.

Everyone I know acknowledges that, by far, the vast majority of officers are doing a good and sometimes amazingly good job. However, everyone admits there are some flagrant exceptions.

Yet by suppressing any suspicion that any one of their officers could do anything amiss due to policies that keep the truth hidden, the leadership convinces the public that the problem is far more widespread than is probably the case.

Stanton Coffin, West Hollywood

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