The inspector general of the NYPD and the city's police commissioner are at odds over a new pilot program equipping some officers with body cameras. On Tuesday, the police commissioner dismissed a new report from the police oversight agency recommending changes to the pilot program. NY1's Courtney Gross filed the following report.
Last week, Philip Eure, the NYPD's inspector general, delivered a stern critique of the department's body camera program.
"No, I don't think the city is ready to roll this out on a wide-scale basis until they get the policy right," Eure said last week.
On Tuesday, the city's police commissioner, William Bratton, responded.
"By and large, I think some of those recommendations will be helpful," he said.
He was talking about the inspector general's review of the city's pilot program equipping officers with body cameras, a program that includes 54 officers testing out the body cameras in six precincts.
"There is a policy in place. OK. How do we get it right?" Eure said last week. "That's the question that we looked at."
One of those recommendations drew particular ire from the police commissioner: restricting officers' access to the video from the body cameras if he or she is the subject of an investigation.
"The recommendations of the IG that we strongly, strongly disagree with and will not support under any circumstance," Bratton said. "I am not pretending to use cameras to play a game of 'gotcha' with the cops."
The NYPD is currently in the process of expanding its body camera program, potentially to thousands of officers. The entire program is the product of a federal court decision back in 2013, which found the city's practice of stop-and-frisk unconstitutional.
The NYPD is now under the supervision of a federal court monitor.
"The process is not going to be controlled by the inspector general or, for that matter, by the police department," Bratton said. "It will be controlled by the federal court and the monitor."
For now, it's unclear if the NYPD will adopt any of the inspector general's recommendations. The police commissioner says the body camera program is in its early stages.
"So again, I think the inspector general's report is going to be helpful in understanding what's going on in the rest of the country," Bratton said. "But in many respects, we are in kind of new territory here as we go forward with that."
When NY1 reached out to the inspector general's office for a response, there was no comment.