Body cameras delayed in Kenosha years before Blake shooting

Officials in Kenosha, Wis., which has erupted in protests since the Sunday police shooting of Jacob Blake, endorsed police body cameras in 2017 but delayed their implementation for years.

The city has been slow to outfit officers with cameras due to the cost despite a unanimous endorsement three years ago by city and law enforcement leaders, according to The Associated Press. As a result, when police shot Blake multiple times Sunday, only a civilian captured footage of the incident.

The lack of cameras for the city’s 200 officers puts it behind many similarly-sized cities and its neighbors in the Midwest, according to the AP. Mayor John Antaramian (D) said Monday that under the current strategy, the city will buy cameras in 2022. Officers have cameras in squad cars, but it remains unclear whether any recorded the shooting of Blake.

“This is a tragedy. But at least some good could come from this if this is finally the incident where Kenosha says, ‘We’ve got to get body cameras on these cops right away’,” Kevin Mathewson, a former member of the Kenosha common council, told the AP.

Mathewson, who served on the council from 2012 to 2017, pushed for the cameras to be bought during his tenure after a series of use-of-force incidents. He proposed a budget amendment to buy the cameras in early 2017, but encountered pushback from the mayor, the chief of police and his colleagues on the council, he told the AP.

Use of body cameras significantly increased since the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. More than 55 percent of police departments with 100 to 250 officers had acquired them by 2016, according to Justice Department statistics. In February, Wis. Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed a law requiring all body camera footage to be kept on file for at least 120 days.

“We have moved [buying cameras] back so many times,” Rocco LaMacchia, chairman of the council’s public safety committee, told the AP. “I got a feeling this is going to move up on the ladder really fast because of what’s going on around the United States right now. Body cameras are a necessity. There’s no doubt about it.”