City Council Wants Body Cameras--Still Mute on Cop Training

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Austin city council is looking to issue 500 body cameras to officers next year as part of the 2016 budget.  Right now, council members are going through the budget, but one item everyone is in support of is body cameras.

“I think accountability and transparency are really the keys to increasing public trust between community and law enforcement,” said Margo Frasier, the city of Austin Police Monitor.  “What we see happen so often is that we’ve had incidents, where we’ve had some in this city, we don’t know for certain what would happen because there is nothing captured on audio and certainly not on video.”

http://kxan.com/2015/09/08/austin-wants-to-outfit-500-officers-with-body-cameras-by-next-year/

While cameras are important, please remember this the first time that the APD budget includes the Department of Justice's recommendation for a training budget. APD has always relied on the state to help pay for its training budget--and those funds have been drying up. It's past time to listen to DOJ and also make sure Austin's police officers are also trained.

If you want to write City Council about either the budget or body cameras, you can all of them by clicking here:

http://austintexas.gov/email/all-council-members