Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - The Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia's state parliament are skeptical about the obligation to turn on the body cam for police officers. "If cameras are always on, that means an expansion of police video surveillance in public spaces. You have to consider that from a civil rights perspective," said the two parliamentary group leaders of the Greens, Verena Schäffer and Wibke Brems, in an interview with the "Rheinische Post" (Friday ). And the question arises as to "whether people will still speak to the police as openly as before when they know that they will be filmed directly. That can be an inhibition threshold," said Schäffer.
The background to this is an announcement by North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) that the police will be required to carry and use bodycams. The occasion was police shots at a 16-year-old in Dortmund, in which the youth was killed. The cameras were not on during the Aug. 8 operation.
