HPD body cameras policy seen as failure at city council

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Body cameras on Houston police officers are what the public has been demanding for several years.  But when it came time to draft a policy on how the department should use those cameras the door was slammed on the public's face.

Houston City Councilman Dave Martin says, We find out of the seven groups they told us that should be involved in the process ... only one was involved in the process."

That left the unveiling of HPD's body camera policy for the first time Tuesday morning a failure with some members of the city council.

Some of the issues: Officers will get to decide which video evidence is relevant to a case, they will also have the discretion to not activate the camera in certain instances, videos not deemed as evidence will be stored for only 90 days, and the public will have some hoops to jump through to access the video through public record.

HPD has plans to buy 4500 cameras within the year and there are 100 already on the streets as part of a pilot program.