Chicago expanding police body-camera pilot program

The program also allows for equipment upgrades every 30 months to ensure officers have the “best technology available”, according to the statement.

The video clip, taken by a camera mounted on the dashboard of a squad auto, showed McDonald being shot as he turned away from officers.

More than 745 hours of video were recorded during the program, and no citizen complaints were filed against police who wore the cameras. Chicago police will begin purchasing the cameras, which can record up to 72 hours on a single charge, beginning in February 2016. Emanuel says in a statement that the expansion into one-third of the city will “strengthen the fabric of trust” between officers and residents.

The city now is using as a pilot program police body cameras in Logan Square, Bucktown and Wicker Park, as well as parts of Avondale and Humboldt Park.

About 2,000 people with signs reading “Stop Police Terror” gathered Friday in a cold drizzle for the march on the city’s Magnificent Mile.

The push for police departments to test the body cameras has been a renewed in the wake of a number of high-profile police-involved shootings.

The announcement came five days after Chicago officials released video from a police dashboard camera of a white police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times, even after he had fallen to the ground. The video was released on the same day Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder.