Video cameras proposed on guns for D.C. police

A D.C. Council member wants to put mini-cameras on roughly 4,000 police firearms to make officers accountable for using lethal force, but other city officials are not convinced about the value of the technology.

Council member Harry Thomas Jr., Ward 5 Democrat, is proposing a bill to equip the Metropolitan Police Department’s weapons with relatively untested PistolCams, which record video and sound when a gun is drawn.

“It would help [officers] stand some of the scrutiny that they go through,” said Mr. Thomas, who wants to introduce the cameras when patrol officers are given assault rifles in the summer.

The city is looking to add additional cameras to its network of approximately 5,200, including 92 monitored by the Metropolitan Police Department in high-crime areas. The rest are run by other city agencies, including 3,700 by D.C. Public Schools.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat, plans to give the police access to those agency cameras. The plan would increase the number of police cameras in high-crime areas from to 225.

In addition, the D.C. Council has approved a plan to put cameras on the city’s 20 street sweepers to scan license plates to catch parking violators.

The PistolCams, which cost about $700 each, attach to the undersides of the guns and are about the same size and weight of attachable flashlights that police typically use, said Bill DeProspo, a spokesman for PistolCam maker Legend Technologies in Keeseville, N.Y.

Mr. Deprospo said yesterday that the cameras record at a quality comparable to a commercial camcorder.

Council member Phil Mendelson, who heads the council’s committee on public safety, said he would hold hearings on the proposal, but he questions the cost-effectiveness of the device.

“The value of the camera would be to determine whether the use of force was unreasonable,” said Mr. Mendelson, at-large Democrat. “I don’t know how successful that would be when issues of excessive force with a firearm comes up maybe a couple of times a year.”

Last year, D.C. police officers shot at people 31 times, more than twice as many times as in 2006, according to statistics from the department. Also last year, officers fired 219 rounds compared with 64 in 2006.

Mr. Mendelson said that a rough calculation of the costs of adding the cameras would be $4 million, which he thinks may be better used for other public safety programs.

Mr. DeProspo said a camera would be more cost-effective than a lengthy investigation into an officer’s conduct, which can cost tens of millions of dollars.

D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said the department “is reviewing the proposed legislation and considering best practices before a formal position on the measure.”

Mr. DeProspo said the Orange County, N.Y., sheriff’s department is testing the cameras and that Legend Technologies is working with legislators to equip state police with them.

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