ACLU wants video cameras to record police interactions

ST. LOUIS -- Nearly a year after the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri announced plans to arm north St. Louis residents with video cameras to record interactions with police, the program still has not begun.

The ACLU originally planned to provide the video cameras to residents by summer after a series of incidents raised concern over potential police brutality. But nearly a year later, the plan has not gotten off the ground, according to Reditt Hudson, who heads up the ACLU's racial justice program.

Hudson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the program is still coming, though the organization was unwilling to discuss timing, other than to say it is working carefully and quietly toward starting up next year.

"The important thing is that the program is very much in the works," said Brenda Jones, the chapter's executive director. "It's an important initiative and we plan to have something we can talk publicly about early in the year."

The ACLU announced the program, the Racial Justice Initiative, in December, saying the videotaping would begin after a series of workshops aimed at helping blacks learn how to protect their rights during dealings with police.

Jones said some of the workshops took place this year.

Hudson, a former city police officer, has long said the department sometimes mistreats and unfairly targets blacks. He said the ACLU hopes the presence of cameras will act as a deterrent to abuse and result in smoother dealings between residents and officers.

Police chief Joe Mokwa has said the taping would be legal and that he believed it would capture scenes of officers acting professionally.

Neither the ACLU nor the police knew of any other previous effort nationally to put officers under private surveillance.