26-Sep-16 – Video cameras on the uniform of every police officer in Chicago is the city’s goal by 2018 and officers in the 1st and 18th districts will be among the first to be fitted.

Seven of Chicago’s 22 police districts will get the first body-worn cameras, Chicago Police Department announced on Sunday. They were selected by police superintendent Eddie Johnson based on “a review of calls for service, officer activity, and consultation with CPD command staff.”

Three of the other districts serve the Chicago Lawn, Englewood, and Grand Crossing neighborhoods south of the loop. The other two are District 11, west of the Loop, and District 25, northwest of the Loop. (Left) The 18th police district stretches from the Chicago River to Fullerton Avenue and from the north branch of the Chicago River to Lake Michigan. The 1st district includes the entire Loop.

The cameras are part of what Johnson calls “significant investments and strategy enhancements” to make neighborhoods safer over the next two years. In addition to the cameras, nearly 1,000 police officers will be added to patrol neighborhoods and they will be trained better, says Johnson. The changes, he says, will create “a culture of accountability within our criminal justice system to hold repeat violent offenders accountable.”

The cameras are Axon Body 2 devices made by a division of the company that makes TASER weapons. They can record high-definition video for at least 12 hours and up 70 hours at lower resolutions. The video can be uploaded to the cloud and viewed on a mobile phone. Audio can be muted.

Eventually, CPD will have 7,000 body-worn cameras, more than any other police department in the nation. According to Johnson, the cameras are in Mayor Emanuel’s upcoming annual budget.