This article has been updated for further clarification.
By Police1 Staff
WASHINGTON — Officers patrolling during the inauguration will not turn on their body cameras until police action is required, including making an arrest.
According to WJLA, police working the event will not activate their cameras for the sole purpose of monitoring or identifying demontrators. The cameras will be turned on if an officer needs to take action, Fox 24 reported.
The ACLU said the cameras shouldn’t be on simply to surveil first amendment activities.
“Our concern is around the availability of body cameras, what is done with that data, who looks at that data and what that data’s used for,” ACLU Spokeswoman Monica Hopkins-Maxwell told the news station.
The law states: “MPD officers may record First Amendment assemblies for the purpose of documenting violations of law and police actions, as an aid to future coordination and deployment of law enforcement units, and for training purposes; provided, that recording First Amendment assemblies shall not be conducted for the purpose of identifying and recording the presence of individual participants who are not engaged in unlawful conduct.”
The ACLU is encouraging citizens to film police, according to the report.
Along with citizens watching the police, law enforcement will be monitoring DC cops as well, the news station reported.