(Western Mass News – Kristin Burnell) In the wake of the Nashville shooting, harrowing body camera footage has been released that shows the moment police track down and confront the shooter inside a school where three children and three adults were killed.
In the six-minute video, you can see officers clearing rooms on both the first and second floor until the suspect is eventually shot and killed on the second floor. The video provided many answers on how the situation was handled in real-time, but also leading to questions about which local police departments use body cameras and their benefits.
Springfield Police Superintendent Cheryl Clapprood spoke during a public safety meeting last week and shared how the use of body worn cameras in the city’s police department has helped their officers and the department over the past three years, especially when it comes to citizen complaints about actions by police officers.
[Meeting question: do you get a lot of complaints?]
“No. We get about roughly three a month. Still, the most complaint is rudeness and that has been solved mostly by the body worn camera…People interpret most of the officers being professional and short now that they’re recording and that is, unfortunately, seen as rudeness sometimes by those that we stop, but the body worn camera has settled that,” Clapprood explained.
Meanwhile, State Senator John Velis told Western Mass News that he believes having body cameras for police officers is essential, especially following the shooting in Nashville.
“You have a real time video of what transpired, so from an evidentiary standpoint, from a ‘Did law enforcement do something wrong’ standpoint, from a protecting law enforcement from claims about their behavior standpoint, if you look at everybody involved in a police encounter, getting an accurate depiction of what happened helps everybody,” Velis said.
He said more police departments should have these types of tools…
“Really, it’s the path going forward. The state police have them, some of the departments have them out here. I believe many more need too. I think it’s inevitably, I think they are going to have them,” Velis noted.