Suffolk detectives open to wearing body cameras, union president says

The Suffolk Detectives Association is open to a proposal that would require its members to wear body cameras, the president of the union said Monday.

But SDA president George Michels cautioned that any policy change would have to address the possibility the devices may discourage violent crime victims and witnesses from speaking to police. 

Suffolk police officers — but not detectives — began wearing body cameras in 2022. 

"There are some good points to it, there are some bad points to it, but having interactions with the public recorded is a positive thing," Michels said of a recommendation requiring detectives to wear body cameras made by the Suffolk Human Rights Commission in its latest internal affairs monitoring report.

Michels said body cameras would help detectives and prosecutors document evidence gathered during an investigation. But gang members, domestic violence victims and sexual assault survivors who might talk candidly to detectives in private may be hesitant if the conversation is recorded on video, he warned.

"It is one thing to get someone to go over an event, horrific as that might be, but that becomes more difficult when you add a body camera," Michels said.

The Human Rights Commission, which has been monitoring the Suffolk County Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau investigation since 2023, said in its annual report that it will recommend that detectives be outfitted with body cameras. The Suffolk Police Reform and Reinvention Plan, approved by the County Legislature in 2021, required officers to wear body cameras.

“All interactions by police with the complainant and other members of the public should be recorded,” the HRC said in its Civilian Police Oversight Annual Report for 2024-2025, posted on the agency’s website on July 14. “For the same reasons that all police officers and their superiors must record their engagement with the public and especially the subjects of any incident, the same is true for detectives.”

Detectives are exempt from the policy, and any changes would have to be collectively bargained with the Suffolk Detectives Association. Many law-enforcement officials have embraced body cameras because they provide evidence that could clear officers accused of misconduct.

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered New York communities to draft reform plans in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder while in the custody of Minneapolis police. Nassau County’s reform plan, approved by county lawmakers in 2021, also called for officers to wear body cameras.

Some law-enforcement officials have expressed concerns that body cameras will discourage crime victims and suspects from cooperating with police. 

Bill Bourguignon,  the president of  the Nassau Detectives Association, said body cameras would make it difficult for his members to do their jobs. Getting victims of violent crimes, especially those who live in proximity to their assailants, is a skill that would be compromised by recording conversations, he said.

“Do you think a gang member or associate, or a witness, would ever speak to me if I was wearing a body camera?” he said. “Dealing with sex crimes, you can’t have it. It would be detrimental.”

The NYPD requires detectives to wear body cameras when they are performing patrol duties, according to the department’s website.

Many law-enforcement officials have embraced body cameras because they bring clarity – and video evidence – when officers are accused of misconduct. In the past, cases where officers are accused of violations might end with a disposition of “unsubstantiated” because there is no evidence misconduct did or did not occur. More cases now conclude with dispositions of “exonerated” because body-camera video shows allegations are meritless.

Jumana Musa of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said equipping detectives with body cameras might provide additional evidence or even confessions to investigators and prosecutors. Judges, juries and prosecutors, she said, are usually deferential to police officers, and detectives’ video would reinforce that.

“Officers’ words get more weight,” she said.

But sometimes it works the other way. Musa said body cameras have recorded police saying “stop resisting” even when a suspect is clearly cooperating. Some cameras buffer, which means they record 30 to 120 seconds of video before officers actually turn the devices on.

Musa, a human rights attorney and the director of NACDL’s Fourth Amendment Center, said she shows video during presentations of an officer in Baltimore planting drugs in an alley on buffered video before he turned on his body camera and “discovered” the evidence.

Musa also questioned if body cameras promote police accountability, as many of the devices’ supporters claim. The number of people killed by police has risen every year since 2020, when Floyd was killed in Minnesota. According to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit organization, there were 1,161 people killed by police in 2020, compared with 1,376 in 2024.