Smile — you're on Taser cam

To try to calm Taser critics, HPD is looking into equipping all its 3,700 Tasers with tiny cameras. Twenty officers across the city are now carrying video-equipped Tasers, which the department thinks might prove police are justified in using the weapons (or, we suppose, might show the opposite). Problem is, the cameras are part of modified Taser battery packs, so they only activate when the Tasers are turned on. That means the tapes only show the shot and what happens after it, not what provoked it. But is that a problem?

"If you don't trust that officer to use that weapon, then you shouldn't have issued it to them in the first place," said J.J. Berry with the Houston Police Officers Union.

But Berry asked why the department needs the cameras when it already conducts an investigation each time a Taser is used. He also wondered about the cost of installing cameras on every HPD Taser — at $400 each, the total bill would be almost $1.5 million, which Berry called "unreasonable." HPD Chief Harold Hurtt has said the cameras would not only quell criticism of Taser use, but could also help with officer training. Plus, think of the revenue the department could make from selling the videos to offenders! "Here it comes, here it comes ... wow, looks like that one hurt!"

The department hasn't set a date for ending the 20-camera test.