By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton police and other law enforcement departments in New Jersey are eligible for grants to buy body cameras for their officers through a program the state attorney general announced Tuesday.
Using funds from criminal forfeiture, the state will make $2.5 million available to all 21 counties in unequal amounts based on their population.
Mercer County will be eligible for up to $100,000, with departments having to apply through the Prosecutor’s Office. Acting county Prosecutor Angelo J. Onofri said Tuesday that by the end of the week, he would provide a memo to police departments containing a grant application and the policy directive acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman issued Tuesday regarding the use of the devices.
Mr. Onofri said departments would have to submit a letter of interest that they want a grant. Cameras cost anywhere from $800 to $1,200 each.
“There is strong interest in body cameras in Princeton — it would complement and indeed further our efforts at effective, fair and accountable law enforcement,” Councilwoman and police commissioner Heather H. Howard said Tuesday by email. “We had decided to wait until there was guidance, and potential funding, from the state (attorney general), so now we can look in earnest at moving forward.”
The grant program comes amid calls nationally for greater accountability of police departments and concerns about police use of force in the wake of high-profile, fatal encounters with the public. Notably, those have included incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, and Staten Island, New York.
The state said it would buy around 1,000 body cameras for the State Police. “I’m glad to see the State Police taking the lead,” said state Assemblywoman Liz Muoio on Tuesday.
Local police departments and other law enforcement agencies will not be mandated to have the devices, however. In his directive, Mr. Hoffman said it would be left to “each law enforcement agency” to decide whether to use them or not.
“I support the body-worn camera initiative but correct implementation is paramount to the success of this technology,” Princeton police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter said Tuesday by email. “To that end, proper policy is pivotal.”
Through a series of guidelines, Mr. Hoffman said the police chief or head law enforcement officer would determine which members of the department would be equipped with cameras. He also said the devices only could be worn by officers trained on how to use them. The cameras must be turned on while officers are “performing official police business,” the directive read in part. Those instances include when they are making an arrest, frisking someone for a weapon or using force, among other things.
Mr. Hoffman’s directive, however, gives individual departments the flexibility to require that officers keep the cameras on through their full shift, except in some circumstances, such as when they are on break.
Mr. Hoffman said the cameras would provide “objective evidence of what occurred” when there is a police shooting or when police use force. In the first five months of this year, Princeton police had seven use-of-force incidents compared to 10 for all of 2014.
Each department that uses body cameras must take steps to make sure the footage is stored properly, Mr. Hoffman wrote.
But the head of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday that the directive “falls short of what’s needed to create police accountability in New Jersey.”
“While it contains some important safeguards, it fails to address those very concerns that have triggered the public’s desire for body cameras in the first place,” said executive director Udi Ofer in a statement.
“The public will not have a right to access the kind of footage — whether it’s the chokehold used on Eric Garner or the arrest of Sandra Bland — that has sparked a conversation on police abuses.”
A spokesman for the state Policemen’s Benevolent Association could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Muoio said cameras are a “step in the right direction” but felt more work is needed to improve relations between the police and the community.
She said the devices add “transparency to policing operations that can protect all parties, police and the public, by preserving a record of events.”
This article was updated on July 29.
