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Read the press release here.

Body Cameras Coming to 7 More Chicago Police Districts

By Alex Nitkin | December 23, 2015 11:51am
 Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Debra Domino wears one of the
Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Debra Domino wears one of the "body-worn cameras" that 30 officers in the Shakespeare district have been using for almost a year.
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Getty Images/Win McNamee

CHICAGO — Nearly a month after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an expansion to the Chicago Police Department's nascent body camera program, he's named the seven districts that will gain the new technology.

Officers in the Shakespeare, Austin, Wentworth, Deering, Ogden, South Chicago and Gresham districts can expect to start wearing the cameras in "early spring of 2016," according to a police news release.

A pilot program in the Shakespeare district, which includes parts of Logan Square and Bucktown, pinned 30 officers with cameras starting in January. Since then, more than 5,000 videos have been captured totaling more than 850 hours of footage, police said.

Most of the other neighborhoods whose districts will bring on body cameras — like North Lawndale, Washington Park and Auburn Gresham — contend with some of the highest crime rates in the city, by most metrics.

Interim Police Supt. John Escalante praised the program in Wednesday's announcement, saying the technology brings "a level of accountability and protection for both police officers and citizens."

This year's pilot program in the Shakespeare district, Escalante added, can already be credited for a 20 percent reduction in complaints against police there.

The cameras will be able to record up to 72 hours of HD video and audio on a single charge, the release said.

The body camera news comes after a DNAinfo Chicago investigation found that 80 percent of police dashboard cameras don't properly record sound.

The announcement did not specify how many officers in each district would wear the cameras. Police will announce those figures later, Chicago Police spokesman Jose Estrada said, depending on how many cameras the department can obtain.

About half the city's $2.2 million budget for body cameras will stream from the U.S.  Justice Department, which earlier this year announced $23 million in grants for cities that implement the technology.

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