After failing two weeks ago—by one vote—to pass an ordinance requiring Baton Rouge police officers to be outfitted with body cameras, the Metro Council will resume discussion on the issue at its meeting Wednesday.
But this time around, it’s Councilman Buddy Amoroso who is bringing forth a new resolution. Since last fall, Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle has led the effort. On May 27, the council most recently deferred the matter, after coming up one vote shy of the seven necessary to pass Marcelle’s ordinance requiring the department to outfit officers with the cameras by the start of next year.
Amoroso says his resolution—which would direct the department to conduct a trial and study period of the technology, and establish a committee to evaluate and study the cost of full implementation—is designed to quell the department’s concerns over the cost and timeline for adopting the technology.
“Basically, we would have been giving the department an unfunded mandate,” says Amoroso of the ordinance the council rejected two weeks ago, which he voted in favor of.
At the council’s previous meeting, Police Chief Carl Dabadie said the department is on board with getting the cameras. However, he expressed concerns about paying for the technology, saying if his department is mandated to use the cameras, then the council should give it a mandate on how to pay for them.
The police department is already committed to begin using 100 body cameras. They’ve already been ordered, a department spokesman has told Daily Report, and should be in use soon.
Amoroso’s resolution calls for the 100 cameras to be used on a trial basis, while a five-member committee—chaired by Marcelle, and including Dabadie, District Attorney Hillar Moore III, a police union representative and someone from the city-parish finance department—further studies the issue. The committee would report back to the Metro Council every two months. Read the full story. —Steve Sanoski
