Baltimore Mayor Calls City Council's Body Camera Bill 'Illegal'
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- It's a city divided. Members of Baltimore City Council moves forward with a bill that would require all of Baltimore's nearly 3,000 police officers to wear body cameras, but the decision comes with backlash from the mayor.
WJZ's Rochelle Ritchie explains why.
It's a war of words at city hall. The controversy over body cameras and whether the city council is in violation of the city's charter.
The bill comes with legal consequences, according to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
"I have been trying to w0rk with the city council on making sure we have a program that works," Rawlings-Blake said.
The request for body cameras comes on the heels of several incidents of alleged police brutality across the city within a few months.
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According to our media partner The Baltimore Sun, the city has spent nearly 12 million dollars paying victims of alleged police misconduct over the last several years.
"The court files and the transcripts show a lot of severe injuries, broken noses, broken arms and broken legs," said Mark Puente of The Baltimore Sun.
On Monday, council members overwhelmingly voted to make all Baltimore city cops wear body cameras, even though the mayor sent them a letter prior to the vote saying, "I respectfully request the council take no action on bill no. 14-0443 and work with my administration to responsibly develop a body camera program for Baltimore City."
But the council passed the bill anyway.
Police Commissioner Anthony Batts is familiar with cameras and their successes and wants them in the city.
"We know there are lingering issues of trust and doubt," Batts said.
The Mayor warns members if such a bill passed, she would veto it -- and she plans to do just that.
"There is a right way and a wrong way to go about it and they have a chosen a way that is not in accordance with the charter," Rawlings-Blake said.
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Council President Jack Young told WJZ last month, the argument of the wording of the charter is simply wasting time.
"It's all interpretation, it's all political BS," Young said.
The mayor says she's very much in support of the body cameras, but she is not in support of the method council members took to produce this bill that she calls illegal.
