Letter: Petition to Have Police Body and Dashboard Cams
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To the Editor:
I have put together a petition put before the Pittsfield City Council to have the Pittsfield Police equipped with body cameras and car dashboard cameras, which they currently do not. The petition has 105 signatures. The signatures were gathered at a "Justice for Miguel" demonstration in Pittsfield.
The petition reads as follows, "We, the undersigned, in light of the shooting of Miguel Estrella and Daniel Gillis where there was no body camera footage, hereby petition the City of Pittsfield to equip Pittsfield Police Officers with body cameras and police cruisers with dashboard cameras. Video footage greatly assists in the preservation of the truth with respect to police encounters. It neither favors the citizen interacting with the police or the police officers themselves — it neutrally captures what actually occurred."
It is expected that the item will be placed on the Pittsfield City Council Agenda for Tuesday, April 26, at 6 p.m. Those members of the public who wish to speak must arrive before 6 p.m. and sign in at the podium in the front or they might not be able to speak. We will have a gathering at 5:30 p.m. in front of City Hall beforehand before going up to speak. Proponents of body cameras and dashboard cameras for police officers are expected to attend.
Unlike what we constantly see in the media across the nation, the shootings of Pittsfield citizens Miguel Estrella and Daniel Gillis were not caught on body cameras. There is only a distant video footage of the shooting of Mr. Gillis and none of Mr. Estrella. This is not acceptable. Police body cameras can both inculpate and exculpate police officers — its beauty is that it preserves the truth when there are competing accounts of a shooting. If we as a society will be using deadly force upon our citizens with mental health issues, the least we can do is to record the incident so that there is a complete, accurate record of what has occurred."
Rinaldo Del Gallo
Pittsfield, Mass.
