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Podcasts Take Two
Police and body cameras
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Dec 17, 2014
Listen • 8:07
Police and body cameras
How do police body cameras work and are they effective?
Officer Guillermo Espinoza does a foot patrol in Skid Row with one of the LAPD's new body cameras. The pilot program is the start of a larger effort to equip as many as 600 police officers with them.
LAPD officer Guillermo Espinoza on patrol in Skid Row. He was part of a pilot program to look at the use of police body cameras.
(
Maya Sugarman/KPCC
)

How do police body cameras work and are they effective?

Yesterday Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a plan to outfit thousands of LAPD officers with body cameras by next summer. 

While it would make the LAPD the largest one in the nation to utilize the technology, it's hardly the first department to give it a try. 

In 2012 the small city of Rialto started to use body cameras on police as part of a study into the technology. We talk to the person responsible for the program, Rialto Chief of Police - Tony Farrar.