Suffolk Sheriff supports cop body cameras
Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Tompkins joined Boston Herald Radio yesterday to talk about the city’s police body camera pilot program. Here are excerpts:
Q: What do you think about this pilot program?
A: I think that Mayor (Martin J.) Walsh and Commissioner (William B.) Evans have done a pretty good thing ... and on the other side of the coin, if you have the body cameras and you have an altercation with a citizen, now you have a documentation of what happened. And that could help the police officer, frankly.
Q: Will people be comfortable talking to an officer who is recording them?
A: Will people want to really open up and talk to us if we have these cameras on? I think they will. I was quite surprised when I heard they were going to do a pilot program for 100 officers, I believe, and that it was going to be voluntary.
Q: What was your reaction to no one volunteering?
A: I thought that — and this is what the mayor had said — I thought that now he’s going to make it happen. And when you force something on an individual or a group of people then it gets a little dicey, I believe. And so I’m curious to see how that works out. Hopefully they can have some mediation. I understand that there was supposed to be some mediation with the police and they didn’t want to do that either. Hopefully they can have some mediation and talk about how they are going to do this. And this goes back to the thing about the long guns and the armor that the police want ... I can understand why the police would want the long guns, but I can also understand why the mayor and community organizations said no-go. Insofar as the armor that they’re asking for, I absolutely think that they should get that. Because look, if the bad guys are throwing whatever they’re throwing, then these officers need to be protected.