After years of delay, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to begin installing video cameras on 300 patrol cars starting next month, an LAPD deputy chief said Tuesday.
Testifying before the Police Commission, Deputy Police Chief Charlie Beck said, "I know how important it is to get this thing up and running before the chief leaves."
Police Chief William Bratton's resignation takes effect Oct. 31. He's returning to New York to join a global security company.
The target date for installing the video cameras is Oct. 20.
Beck said the delays were due to "exhaustive testing" of the sophisticated equipment.
"We want this worse than anybody, but we want it to work when it rolls out," he said.
Under Phase 1 of the project, 300 patrol cars in the LAPD's South Bureau will receive the video cameras before the end of the year at a cost of about $5 million.
If the system is successful, the rest of LAPD's 1,600 patrol cars may be equipped with video cameras later. The price tag: $20-25 million.
Each patrol car will be fitted with two video cameras -- one to record images in front of the car, and the other to record detainee behavior in the backseat. Police officers, meanwhile, will be fitted with wireless microphones.
Recording will begin once a patrol car's lights and siren are activated. The footage will then be wirelessly transmitted to computers at police stations, where supervisors can view but not alter it.
"It will change the way that people look at this police department, and the way that this police dDepartment looks at the folks that is serves," Beck said.
City officials and community activists have been calling for the video cameras for years, claiming they are needed for police accountability, while the expects the video cameras to protect their officers from false allegations of misconduct, including racial profiling, and prevent costly lawsuits.
The concept of equipping patrol cars with video cameras was first recommended by the Christopher Commission following the 1991 police beating of Rodney King.
