"WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is seizing on National Police Week as the right time to re-introduce his legislation to help all departments get outfitted with body cameras for officers.
Scott began his push for the grant program in 2015.
The senator grew up in North Charleston, S.C., where Walter Scott, no relation, was running from police after a traffic stop that April and was shot in the back.
The officer, Michael Slager, was fired and pleaded guilty this month to federal civil rights charges in exchange for state murder charges being dropped.There was no body camera footage of the shooting, but it was captured on a cell phone camera by a bystander.
Scott intensified his campaign for body cameras after Freddie Gray, a young man in Baltimore who suffered a fatal spinal injury in police custody, died in April 2015.
No officers were convicted in his death.
...At least one study shows that public complaints against officers wearing body cameras fell by almost 90% and that officers’ use of force decreased by 60%," he wrote.
...“Our nation has experienced too much pain and heartache from tragedies that could have been more clearly explained if body cameras were in use."...
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