President Obama Reveals $75 Million Plan to Provide Local Police with Body Cameras

This needs to happen.

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President Obama has requested that Congress allow $75 million be spent over the next three years to outfit local police departments with body cameras. This comes a week after a grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson for killing 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. in August

According to Talking Points Memo, this was part of President Obama's proposal to improve police procedures following Brown's death and the protests it inspired:


Obama's proposal would provide a 50 percent federal match for local police departments to purchase body cameras and to store them. The White House estimated that the three-year, $75 million investment could purchase as many as 50,000 body cameras.


The most recent estimates have put the number of sworn law enforcement personnel with arrest powers at 765,000. A July 2013 report found that 75 percent of responding police agencies said that they did not use body cameras.


A senior administration official told reporters in a Monday conference call that the White House would work with Congress to start the program in the FY 2015 budget.

At the same time, Talking Points Memo adds that President Obama also wants to revamp federal programs which provide local police departments with military-style equipment: 

Under the forthcoming executive order, the president is expected to require a civilian, non-police review of any equipment requests, require training for the use of any transferred equipment and mandate after-action reports if the equipment is used in the line of the duty.

[via Talking Points Memo]

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