Boston Police Commissioner William Evans joined Boston Public Radio Tuesday for his monthly “Ask the Commissioner” segment. Evans fielded listener calls, and talked about a pilot program to give body cameras to Boston police officers by April.
The following are excerpts from Evans’ appearance on BPR. To hear the entire interview, click the audio link above.
We’ve talked endlessly about body cameras for police officers, how soon are they coming to Boston and what will the pilot program mean?
I had a meeting on it this morning, actually. We’ve had some sessions where we’ve been pulling people together looking at best practices, looking at different policies across the nation, and obviously working with Anthony Braga from Harvard, but also last week we’ve had a group of lawyers in from Harvard… we’re working with Harvard to get a best practice, a policy into place, and we’re going to try a six-month pilot program, where they’ll look at the results and we’ll look at the positives, we’ll look at the negatives, and we’ll go forward. I’ve met with the unions, it’s something obviously that we’ll have to bargain with them on, because it’s a change in working conditions. Between drawing up the policy, putting out proposals for the technology, we’re moving, but unfortunately it’s not a quick process.
When you were here a month ago, you said the program would be in effect in several months. Is there a target date?
I hope by April we can get them up and running.
Is it the policy that concerns you, or is it purely the mechanics that have to be worked out? You and the mayor were a little reluctant, have you gotten over that?
I’ve been going to every roll call, I met with the Patrolmen’s Association representatives, and I told them that this is going to happen. They know this is going to happen, I haven’t gotten a lot of fight back, to tell you the truth, it’s just making sure we have a fair policy so the public’s interest is protected, as well as the Patrolmen’s. If I could snap my fingers and it would be out tomorrow, but there’s so much involved in getting this up and running.
You say you have to negotiate with the Patrolmen’s union— what does that mean? Is there going to be a quid pro quo meaning for them to agree to this, you’ll have to do something in return?
It’s sort of just to make sure they know their interests are protected, it can’t be one-sided. If there’s a policy put into effect, as far as video goes, what are the rights of the officers going to be involved? It’s not a quick fix, we just want to make sure they’re okay with it, and anytime a change in working conditions happens, we usually run it by them. Obviously we have strong unions here, and hopefully we can get it on board. Over the last five or six years, I’ve looked at internal complaints, and as far as use of excessive force in our department, we’ve had a 62 percent reduction. I want that on the record, before the cameras actually go on, that we had over 70 about five years ago, and in all the arrests we made, we only had twenty complaints that we used more force than we should have.
I think indirectly, the cameras and the knowledge that we’re being watched all the time has already had its effect, and I think we’re doing a great job, and I think the officers are doing a great job, bringing down any type of complaints.
In those internal affairs investigations which you say have dropped dramatically in number, how many of those cases was the officer found to have used excessive force?
I don’t have the exact numbers, but I don’t think it’s many. A lot of these, believe it or not, when we lock people up, sometimes they fight us, sometimes we have to bring them to the ground, so a lot of them, because of the force and the resistance that we’re faced with, but we don’t have a lot of cases where someone was beaten up.
