Ready for their closeup

On Monday, the NYPD takes a sizable step forward as sergeants and lieutenants start their shifts with body-worn cameras joining firearms, tablets and handcuffs as standard equipment. Cheer the advance. The ability of the cameras to shine urgent light on fraught — and fatal — incidents is now well established.

It was seen last September following the death of an emotionally disturbed Miguel Richards in the Bronx. Released footage showed officers responding with patience and care, even as the incident ended in tragedy, with Richards refusing to drop a knife and what turned out to be a toy gun.

But just as body cameras have the power to calm crowds, they can rile them up. Which is as it should be; that’s how the truth works.

Witness the agonizing body-camera story playing out in California. Two weeks ago, 22-year-old Stephon Clark died in a hail of bullets fired by two Sacramento police officers who were responding to 911 reports of smashed car windows.

Initial reports suggested a rash and disproportionate use of police force. When released by the department, body camera footage confirmed the worst suspicions.

Within moments of the officers engaging Clark, one yells “Gun! Gun! Gun! Show me your hands!” — followed almost immediately by a rapid-fire discharging of two police weapons. That “gun,” it turned out, was a cell phone. As time passes and more officers arrive on the scene, a voice can be heard saying, “mute” — at which point all officers present switch off the audio on all their body cameras.

The abrupt loss of sound in the subsequent minutes is unacceptable; fortunately, NYPD cameras have no mute button. No police body-worn camera should.

In light of the Clark incident, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declared last week that such shootings are “a local matter.”

That’s downright insulting, particularly coming from an administration that nationalizes every crime committed by an undocumented immigrant.

While it’s true that the vast majority of cops do their best to make difficult split-second judgment calls, it is an American problem, not “a local matter,” that unarmed men — particularly unarmed black men — are far too often seen as fatal threats.

We applaud the NYPD for taking a big step toward holding itself accountable. If and when, God forbid, one of those new cameras records a fatal shooting, we will all be better off seeing and knowing the revealed truth.