POUGHKEEPSIE – The administration
in the City of Poughkeepsie will seek funding in the 2019 budget to pay
for dash cameras for all of its police cars.
Year two of the plan would be purchasing body cameras for police officers.
State Attorney General Barbara Underwood is allocating $2 million for local police departments to purchase body cams, but only local law enforcement agencies with between 130 and 3,000 sworn officers are eligible for the funding.
That rules out Mid-Hudson cities like Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Middletown,
Port Jervis and Kingston.
Poughkeepsie City Administrator Marc Nelson is miffed as to why the smaller cities are being excluded from the program.
“Not to take anything away from the cops on the beat in the bigger cities, but New York State is a big state and we are not all big cities. Don’t forget about us,” Nelson said.
Body cameras are hailed by police agencies and communities-at-large for provided a firsthand account of interactions.
