Mayor Orders All Seattle Police To Wear Body Cameras

SEATTLE, WA - Mayor Ed Murray issued an unexpected executive order Monday requiring all Seattle police to wear body cameras. The order would phase in body camera use across precincts over time, but the order was met with some anger by the union representing Seattle police, which called the move a "slap in the face," according to reports.

Murray's order requires all West Precinct bike officers to be wearing cameras by July 22, and then all West Precinct officers by Sept. 30. The rest of the force will get cameras "on a monthly precinct-by-precinct" basis, according to a press release. The West Precinct is located in downtown Seattle and serves the downtown area plus Magnolia, Queen Anne, Belltown, and Eastlake.

Some Seattle officers already wear body cameras, but the body-cam program was technically still in the pilot phase. As recently as June, the police union and city officials were still negotiating how to roll out the body-cam program. At issue: whether police would be allowed to review body-cam footage before writing reports.

The city has been on the march toward full body-cam coverage for a while, however. In February, the City Council approved $2 million in funding for the program. Private groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, have objected to body cameras citing privacy issues.

Murray's order comes about one month after two Seattle police officers shot and killed Charleena Lyles, 30, a pregnant mother of four in her apartment near Magnuson Park. The officers said that Lyles approached them holding a knife, but there is no video of what happened leading up to that shooting, which Murray alluded to in remarks about the executive order.

"Mayor Murray is directing prompt implementation of the program to ensure no further significant uses of force by police officers go undocumented by a video record," Murray's spokesman Benton Strong wrote in a press release about the executive order.

Image via Seattle police