Paul Bass Photo
Wydra, at right, kept the body cam turned off at forum.
Tom Wydra came armed when he entered New Haven City Hall—with a camera attached to his tie.
Wydra, Hamden’s police chief, has started wearing the “body camera” whenever in uniform. In recent months all of his cops wear them when out on the streets.
The introduction of body cameras has been a rallying cry of people seeking solutions amidst the fervid national debate over police misconduct. The idea was embraced by members of the panel Wydra joined in City Hall last week, convened by the Connecticut African-American Affairs Commission to discuss criminal-justice reform. In December President Obama proposed pumping $263 million into state and local law enforcement agencies to purchase the cameras in the wake of controversies like the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting and killing an unarmed teenager by a police officer.
New Haven’s police department was already exploring the idea. Since then the police union has expressed an openness to it, too. But it has also raised a host of questions. (Read about those here.)
Both sides agreed to keep talking to try to arrive at a mutually agreeable policy. The last formal meeting on the subject took place back in November, according to union President Louis Cavaliere Jr.
New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman said Wednesday that the department has studied other cities’ experiences before rolling out a pilot plan here, in order to avoid mistakes made elsewhere. A number of departments had to discontinue using body cams because they bought inferior models, he said. In some cases they also equipped officers with camera glasses that could harm officers who end up in physical confrontations. New Haven will probably end up with a version of the chest-worn camera worn by Hamden’s Wydra, Esserman said.
New Haven identified departments in four cities, including New York and Los Angeles, as having the best policies. It is now examining those policies along with best-practices guidelines from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to pilot a program here in conjunction with the union, Esserman said. He’s glad New Haven has “thought it through” in conjunction with the union without rushing to implement it. New Haven officials testified in Hartford to seek money for the pilot.
Meanwhile, Branford’s police department has fully outfitted its 51-member force with body cams. Cops have found that the cameras provide an effective record against false charges from the public — as in an incident (captured in the above video) with an abusive driver who planned to file a complaint against the cop until he saw the results of the video. The cameras have kept both the public and officers on best behavior.
Hamden’s Wydra (pictured) said he decided to experiment with body cams a year and a half ago after hearing about the successes from Branford Chief Kevin Halloran. The experiment worked so well that in the past six months he has outfitted all 75 officers who interact with the public — including himself — with the Taser Axon model cameras.
Officers are instructed to turn on the cameras at the outset of interactions with the public, including service calls and potential arrests. They are to use discretion in potentially embarrassing non-arrest situations to preserve people’s “dignity.” Wydra offered this hypothetical case for turning off the camera: “Let’s take a mother who’s reporting that her mailbox was smashed. The officer enters the home to take the complaint. Maybe there are two young kids. Maybe they’re in diapers. Maybe they’re fighting with each other.” It makes sense not to record that interaction, he said.
Wydra offered a recent real-life example of how this “fantastic technology” is improving police work. A woman was caught shoplifting at a Hamden store. She had no criminal record. The officer gave her a summons instead of arresting her.
Subsequently the police got a call from a woman who said her “80-something year-old mother was issued a failure-to-appear notice, and it wasn’t possible, because she’s bedridden. She’s in the house. She doesn’t go out.”
The cops showed the daughter the video from the body cam. The daughter immediately recognized the arrest: It was her mother’s daughter-in-law, who’d impersonated the mother-in-law.
Based on that review, the cops were able to arrest the daughter-in-law.
There was a second benefit: The officer learned from the case. At the scene she had noticed that the woman looked young for an octogenarian. She had asked the shoplifter about that. The shoplifter replied that she had had plastic surgery. Next time, Wydra told the officer, try to verify that story.