Rochester City Council is releasing a survey designed to see how they feel about the plan for police to wear body cameras. Even though City Council doesn't officially vote on the policy that will implement the policy, it wanted to help gather input from city residents.
The survey received nearly 3,000 responses and nearly 88 percent of those surveyed think that RPD officers should wear a camera.
Councilman Adam McFadden, who is the Chair of the Public Safety Committee, says the survey backs up what he's heard from many constituents.
“I think the survey proved that there’s some merit in having this both for the protection of police and citizens, so I think it’s a great thing. “
McFadden has been supportive of the idea of Rochester implementing the cameras which are already in use in a number of cities around the country.
“I don’t have an over-expectation of them, I don’t think that they will magically fix most of the problems that we have but I do think they will provide additional information for investigations, arrests and misconduct.”
McFadden says issues still to be worked out by City Hall officials and police is at what times the cameras will be used as well as who has access to the files and how long the data will be kept.
McFadden says there will be a public comment session in the future, and those comments will be forwarded to the city administration.
