Toronto police chief says George Floyd's death 'speaks to value of body-worn cameras'

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George Floyd’s life being taken at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis last week “speaks to the value of why we need body-worn cameras” right here in Toronto, police chief Mark Saunders said.

“There isn’t any law enforcement officer that I can think of that did not have a horrible feeling in their stomach when they saw– it still bothers me,” the chief said during a news conference held at Toronto Police Headquarters on Thursday afternoon.

“Take 1940 for example,” he said. “A Black man was hung because he did not address the officer by Mr., he said his first name. These types of atrocities have happened and a lot of people tend to forget that.” “You can figure out how you want to define recent versus past,” he continued. “If my mom and my dad were alive, then it is recent enough for me to say there was a problem, we have gotten better, but the incremental change is why people are so angry right now.”

Body-worn cameras have been absent on the vests of police officers in Toronto for several years now. A pilot project that saw 100 front-line officers be equipped with the cameras for 11 months ended in April 2016. “We have had community town halls on the very discussion on: what are the things that you would like put in play to make sure that we at all times respect privacy, but at the same time have the ability of recording what’s necessary,” he said.

 

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What if we set a gofundme for bodycams?

Every police officer while on duty should wear a body cam.

Good - time to hold them accountable

What good will body cameras do when the powers to be can watch the same video we all saw and not immediately call it murder?

Ita a good thing we have all these prominent elected officials of colour to lecture Canadians about racism.......

Police Man doing by the trained in Schools

CTVAtlantic most of the videos came from cell phoned

Body cameras.... That CANNOT be turned off.

What good is a body camera if its off? Cameras should be live during the officers shift- they cannot control when they turn the cameras on or off. Sure it could be intrusive to the police officer but it could also prevent the type of situations that got us into our current mess

The camera was invented by Johann Zahn; a racist. Cameras have long been used to 'study' People of Colour and prove that they were not equal. We need people of colour to design an alternative technology for this job that is not mired in a racist history.

Mr. George Floyd's death 'speaks' volumes of police unions' strong arms to protect police force of disgraceful members.

4 cops participated in the killing of George Floyd while on camera. Its a racist culture.

Mark Saunders you are a pioneer and a hero! Thank you for sharing your insight on body worn cams!

Stay peace and respect the social distancing, covid19 is real enemy and indiscriminately come after you folks

Live streamed to an objective third party that monitors it all 24/7

Uhh yeah but if it weren't for an enraged public viewing the footage (which is extremely rare), the cops would have gotten away with it. They almost did anyway.

So what's stopping them from being mandated in TPS?

I agree that body cameras provide additional evidence in the worst case scenarios and investigations to support justice. Also, they can be used to help train new officers on what to do/not to do in similar situations

Agreed

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