Las Vegas police now wearing body cameras
FILE- This Sept. 22, 2014 file photo shows a black camera clipped to a police uniform in Kent County, Mich. The police department in the western Michigan city of Lowell is among several around the state that are reporting positive results from the routine use of body video recorders for their officers. (AP Photo/Detroit Free Press, Jessica J. Trevino) DETROIT NEWS OUT; NO SALES
LAS VEGAS >> Las Vegas police are offering a look at lapel video cameras now being used by several hundred street officers in Sin City.
Department officials are hosting a media event Wednesday to talk about a pilot program underwritten by a grant from the National Institute of Justice.
Small, lapel- or vest-mounted cameras have been tested by U.S. Border Patrol agents in New Mexico, and police in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Phoenix, Rialto, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
Outgoing Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie endorsed a Las Vegas police body camera program in 2012, amid calls for a civil rights probe into the frequency of officer-involved shootings in southern Nevada.
The federal Justice Department says evidence shows that officers and the people they encounter behave better when cameras are present.
