Police and city representatives in Boston are continuing a hearing today regarding the use of body cameras. William Evans, Boston’s police commissioner, requested that 100 officers volunteer to wear the cameras in mid-July. According to Evans, he had the authority to assign the wearing of the cameras because no one took him up on the request. The police union, however, says the city has violated an agreement with the officers—the cameras were supposed to be strictly voluntary, and if they are not, there needs to be negotiation with the officers.
… That prompted the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association to ask a judge to issue an injunction to halt the program until a new agreement can be negotiated.
Union President Patrick Rose testified Tuesday that the city violated its agreement with the union when Evans assigned officers to what was supposed to be an all-volunteer program. Rose acknowledged that he told members not to volunteer for the program before the union had reached an agreement with the city. But he insisted that once the agreement was reached, he encouraged officers to volunteer.
"We know we're going to have cameras on ... all I ever looked for was an agreement that took care of the things we wanted to take care of," Rose said.
According to Boston’s local CBS affiliate, union president Rose also said the timing of the body camera request was “horrible” because it came during the same time that police officers were slain in Baton Rouge and Dallas.
Cops in Cincinnati and Denver have also sought to have the issue of body cameras fall under contract negotiations and collective bargaining.
So now, we have the issue of police union resistance added to various state efforts to block the release of police video footage, or significantly delay its release to the public.
Thus, the fight for police accountability and transparency continues to be exactly that: a fight.