Expansion of police body camera program on hold again in Hallandale Beach

Police Chief Sonia Quinones wants every patrol officer in Hallandale Beach to hit the road armed with a body camera.

“Technology is here to stay,” she told commissioners Wednesday night. “Everybody has a camera. We should too.”

But Mayor Joy Cooper and Commissioner Anabelle Taub — who said she was in favor of the cameras when she ran for office last year — voted against the program Wednesday.

Hallandale Beach became the first city in Broward County to embrace body cameras when it launched a pilot program two years ago. The tiny cameras can clip onto an officer’s uniform or eyeglasses to record traffic stops and other interactions with the public.

This week, Hallandale was poised to roll out a full-scale program that would have given 40 officers and eight sergeants body cameras at an average cost of $42,000 a year for the next five years.

Commissioner Michele Lazarow and Vice Mayor Keith London voted yes on the body cameras, but the motion died with the 2-2 tie. Since Anthony Sanders resigned from the commission in August, several votes have ended in deadlocks. A special election to fill his seat is planned in March.

Lazarow championed the idea of body cameras four years ago but ran into resistance from a police union that has since warmed up to the idea, the chief says.

Jeff Marano, president of the police union, says some of the agency’s officers like the cameras, but not all.

“There’s never going to be full consensus,” he said.

During Wednesday’s debate, Taub said she’d rather hire more officers than spend money on body cameras.

Cooper said she was not going to be “rushed” into a vote.

“I’m not ready to support this tonight,” the mayor said. “If you do not have buy-in from our men and women in blue, this is not a good program.”

Lazarow, who first floated the idea in 2013, ridiculed the mayor for saying she needed more time.

“I’ve been working on this project for four years,” Lazarow said. “The taxpayers want this.”

So do the police officers, the chief says.

The police union, which initially opposed the program, now supports it, Quinones said.

“I believe body cameras enhance our transparency and build trust, especially considering what’s going on in the world right now,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “They also help us in the prosecution of cases.”

Before the vote, Quinones told commissioners the cameras have helped exonerate Hallandale officers who’d been wrongly accused of misdeeds.

One suspect recently claimed an officer slammed his head against a police cruiser. And one woman accused an officer of sexually assaulting her. A review of the body camera footage showed the stories weren’t true, the chief said.

Cooper said it’s taken Hallandale Beach longer than other cities to equip its officers with body cameras partly because she insisted the city hire Florida International University to study the issue first. The study found that officers with body cams relied on less intrusive methods to resolve incidents.

On Thursday, Cooper told the Sun Sentinel she plans to revisit the issue after the holidays, likely on Jan. 10.

“I don’t make knee-jerk reactions when it comes to public safety and the safety of our police officers,” she said. “I am not strapping cameras on men and women on our streets until they are comfortable with them.”

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