SYRACUSE, NY >> The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a grant for $117,888 to Syracuse. The grant is specifically geared towards the sole purpose of equipping the police with body cameras for a pilot program.
However, the city of Syracuse will only be using half of that grant to buy ten police cameras. Syracuse mayor Stephanie Miner held a press conference this morning and said that the city of Syracuse will be working with the Department of Justice on how to implement this batch of cameras.
Miner also talked about how the new equipment in the police department will be apart of a pilot program that could be used to justify more cameras in the future.
Miner compared this pilot program to the use of surveillance cameras in the city back in 2011. Those cameras had started to be implemented on the Near West Side for their pilot program.
“Stationary cameras also started off as a pilot program, and now people want more cameras and feel they’re very effective,” Miner said. “People will want more as long as we do it in a methodical and effective way.”
In the past the city has been denied from being able to equip its police officers with cameras. Rochester and Albany had received more than $700,000 in federal grants to equip their own police with body cameras at the time when Syracuse’s proposal got rejected.
These struggles led Miner to criticize Rep. John Katko last week for not offering more help to the city in its bid for the grant.
But with Syracuse finally accepting $59,000 from the feds they can finally look forward to new police body cameras. Miner says that the police in Syracuse should be wearing cameras by the end of 2016.