LEWISTON (WGME)— In wake of recent nationwide protests, Lewiston city council has decided to begin the process of gradual police reform. But it hasn’t been a flawless start.
One of the first hurdles being the acquisition of body cameras for their officers.
Lewiston’s police patrol union had requested the body cameras ‘as soon as possible’ back in June. The council responded saying that they would present a timeline for purchasing the body cameras by December 31st of this year.
This means that cameras will not be part LPD equipment until mid-late 2021 at the earliest. The police union says that isn’t fast enough.
“The answer, ‘We’ll have a plan in place by the 31st to see about purchasing these things,’ just does not fly with me, and it shouldn’t fly with the public,” said Detective Thomas Murphy, who is the Lewiston Police Association president.
“It’s not as simple as buying a camera. We need to make sure that we buy the right cameras and we support our police officers with the right technology and that it integrates with the rest of our city systems and data warehouses,” said Lewiston city administrator Denis D’Auteuil.
The police union is also unhappy about the city’s new diversity committee.
The mayoral Ad Hoc Committee on Equity and Diversity was established to advise and make recommendations to the city council as well as Lewiston’s officers. It is made up of 12 committee members and assisting staff, however it lacks any police representation.
The union says that when the idea first came up they were all on board, and ready to put a union member on the committee in order to bring a police perspective to the discussion.
However, The city says they already formed the committee by the time they received a request from the police union to be part of the committee and they’ll still be invited to have their voices heard just not as voting members.
The police union says at this time they do not support the ad hoc committee in it’s current state, but are still trying to work with the city moving forward.
