NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, April 12, 2015, 10:38 PM
ABC NewsFormer NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly was once opposed to police body cameras. But he said he changed his mind after the death of Walter Scott, who was shot by a South Carolina cop.
The shooting of an unarmed black man by a cop in South Carolina has made former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly a believer in police body cameras.
“It has changed my mind,” Kelly, formerly a camera skeptic, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “Because we have to assume that this officer would not act the way he did if in fact he had a body camera that was recording.”
North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager was caught on video taken by a bystander shooting a fleeing Walter Scott in the back repeatedly. Slager has been charged with murder.
Uncredited/APA witness recorded a video showing Walter Scott fleeing from Officer Michael Slager. The cop shot and killed Scott. The death has put a spotlight on whether cops should be equipped with body cameras.
“I think it is a game changer,” Kelly said. “What you will see is a movement now by many more police departments to go to cameras. There are issues with it, there are problems with it, but this trumps all of those problems.”
The former top cop said good officers are disgusted by the video.
“I’ve talked to a lot of cops this past week, and they’re uniformly sickened by it. Unfortunately, it’s seen as suspicions confirmed in a lot of communities,” he said.
