Mayor de Blasio is speeding up plans to outfit the NYPD with body cameras, announcing Tuesday that all patrol officers would get the cams by the end of 2018, a year ahead of schedule.
The mayor’s preliminary budget for fiscal 2019 sets aside $27.4 million over the next three years to meet the accelerated roll-out.
That money will cover the cameras themselves, as well as associated IT and legal costs.
So far, the city has deployed 2,470 body cams and plans to issue between 800 and 2,000 new cameras each month. By the end of the year, 18,000 cops will have them.
“By ensuring all patrol officers are outfitted with these essential, modern policing tools a year faster than originally planned, we’re helping to make New York City fairer faster,” de Blasio said.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents rank and file cops, filed a lawsuit earlier this month in an attempt to block the release of any footage from the cameras.
The union’s president, Patrick Lynch, slammed the stepped-up roll out, saying it “makes no sense” because unresolved issues remain.
“The largest, most rigorous study to date suggests they have no such effect,” Lynch said. “Jurisdictions across the country are confronting issues regarding due process, safety, and privacy of police officers and those who are the subject of captured footage, as well as a huge drain on municipal resources for unclear benefit.”