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But Rialto also has 54 uniformed officers. Miami-Dade has somewhere around 1,500, according to PBA President John Rivera, who has some seemingly legitimate 
concerns about the cameras — and not just a knee-jerk reaction because there is still no contract agreement in sight and he doesn’t believe or hates anything that comes out the mayor’s mouth.
First off, it’s 500 body cameras budgeted this year. But we have 1,500 cops on the street. How will we pick and choose which officers get the cameras? Ladra hopes midnight shift gets first dibs.
He also has questions about the peripheral vision of body cameras and whether or not they will be equipped with special night vision capacity. “Our officers don’t have infra red vision,” Rivera said. “It has to be a fair comparison to what they see with the naked eye.”
Rivera also said that the mayor has not discussed the real cost of the cameras. In addition to the $500,000 wanted by Taser International — the big dog on the national scale making tons of money providing this service — to run and maintain the camera program, the county’s police department will need to assign its own people to train officers in the use of the cameras, to review the tapes, to catalog them, to store them.
And the mayor said he wants to use the body cameras as an even more effective law enforcement tool in the future, with facial recognition software to get information on the subject to the officer in real time. That sounds expensive.
And what happens when an officer “forgets” to turn his camera on? Or, worse, forgets to turn the camera off before he goes into the little boy’s room at 
Dunkin Donuts? What happens if there are other people (read: innocent folk) besides the subject caught on camera, including minors? There needs to be a lot of standard procedure stuff written here. A lot of questions still need answers.
But, while there does need to be policy and training and more study on the total eventual costs, Ladra is already all in.
Not just because there are so many people with cellphone cameras now and police altercations are already being recorded — just not by the police. Which is a good thing. Check out the awesome work being done by blogger Carlos Miller and the other good folks at photographyisnotacrime.com, where the motto is “be the media.”
Nah. It is mostly because another perk not mentioned is that politicos who might try to weasel themselves out of a ticket — ala Miami Commissioner Frank Carollo in his now famous Coconut Grove incident — would instead have to smile for the camera with the knowledge that bloggers like me and Al Crespo are gonna be all over that. That extends to the, ahem, children of electeds who get caught buying drugs in daddy’s car. Allegedly.
Oh, yeah, the recordings have to be a public record, right Al? The mayor can’t decide what gets out and what doesn’t t out. In fact, might Ladra suggest a live feed on the county website to help fund the boy cam program. I’d pay per view. You might even make it into a revenue stream on YouTube with the really good ones.
And why stop at cops?
We should order 14 more body cameras — for Gimenez and the other 13 county commissioners. Besides the “what’s good for the goose” thing and setting an example — which the mayor says he loves to do — Ladra bets that they will just be more entertaining. Their inside deals and meetings with lobbyists are certainly something that the public has an vested interest in seeing, as well. In fact, the mayors of all municipalities should wear body cameras, as well.
And maybe, like the mayor inferred would happen with cops, bad politicians would think twice before, say, taking $3,000 from a lobbyist in a closet.
In fact, Ladra is willing to bet we get more action on those cameras.
I want to hear the conversation (or I can read lips) 
when lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez — who we assume picked up the tab — sat at a table at Joe’s Stone Crabs not only with his BFF Gimenez but also with Miami-Dade Aviation Department Director Emilio Gonzalez and whoever those two other guys are at the end of the table that Ladra can’t really see, let alone recognize.
“There is no expectation of privacy when you’re outside the house,” the mayor said on The Gray Zone. “There is none. If you think anything you do is private if you’re outside your house, I think those days are done.”
It’s nice to finally agree with him on something.
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Body cameras are swell — but put one on the mayor, too added by Ladra on
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Wait! $1 million for 500 officers, so that comes down to $2000 per cop. HD 1080P Infrared Wide Angle Police Body Camera is only $299.99, which I’m sure they’ll get a better price for 500 cameras. After some basic math it adds up to $160,494.65 w/tax. Nothing against the Police Department, I’m just questioning how the “CRY WOLF’S CREW” came up with that Dollar amount.
FOOD FOR THE THOUGHT.
Yes. Let’s use the mayor and his staff as the pilot program. It greatly reduces the cost of the experiment.
500 cameras almost assures that the beast will be fed for a long time with additional expenses tagged on.
Body cams for everyone! Why stop at the chiefs of staff? Let’s equip department directors with them. All procurement officers. And the union leaders, too. Fair is fair.
I won’t ask for anything I’m not willing to do myself. In fact, I am putting a little black body cam on my Santa’s list!
Or better yet… yo, Taser International people… why don’t you equip Ladra with your best collar/video recorder and we can post footage — “brought to you by Taser International” — as a way to show the world what a great idea this is?
Little brother is watching, too.
Love, Ladra
Carlos Gimenez should lead by example. He should wear a body camera. Think how many crimes will be avoided? For the really dumb lobbyists who offer him a bribe(s) on camera think how easy it will be to prosecute them? Yes. Yes.
Gordo….didnt you run around with a camera all over the place when you ran for Mayor in Hialeah?? Why don’t we just put cameras inside everyone’s home so we can monitor what they do?
Pedrito I just remembered who you are! You are the hair stylist who used to dye Mayor Carlos Hernandez’s hair at Yoyito’s house! Mi hermano I wish I had a video of that scene with Carlos running around the house with jet black hair dye applied to his head and a towel wrapped around his neck while he talked on the phone. Buddy I just saw him on TV a couple of days ago and his grey roots are showing! Get with it Pedrito! Lol
Cameras don’t lie but the surrounding narrative sure can..
In Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, David and Goliath he goes back and reviews what is arguably the most famous photograph in the history of the American civil rights movement . AP photographer’s Bill Hudsons photograph of a black teenage protester being set up on by a police dog in Birmingham, the summer of 1963.. It is widely credited as the turning point in the civil rights movement.
It turns out none of we think we see actually happened.
The teenager is not a poor protester but a guy named Walther Gadsden, a middle class teenager and only a bystander who came to watch the protest. He was actually from a conservative family that owned two newspapers sharply critical of King.. What’s more he raised dogs and was fully aware how to handle them. He is not grabbing the officer while passively letting the dog attack as it appears, but steadying himself on the cop and bringing his knee into the dogs head, breaking the dog’s jaw.. and lastly the whole demonstration had not been called by King is a peaceful protest but race baiting exercise specifically orchestrated to get pictures of Bull Connor’s cops beating black children.. a strategy he was widely criticized for even at the time.
But it only took 50 years for the real story to come out.
While the mayor is at it, he should buy 27 additional body cameras- one for himself, 13 for our sitting commissioners and 13 for their chiefs of staff. This will also be very beneficial for our community. By wearing these cameras the mayor will no longer be able to meet in secrecy with Jorge Luis Lopez, Rafael Garcia Toledo, his own son, etc., and be briefed about what sort of county contracts he should be pushing at the BCC. Imagine how interesting that conversation between the mayor and his campaign manager Al Lorenzo about absentee ballots may have sounded like back in 2012! By wearing the cameras the commissioner chiefs of staff, more commonly referred to as “the gate keepers” or carriers of messages between commissioners to see how their votes stack, will no longer be able to meet with consultants and lobbyists and seal deals for our commissioners. At last, by wearing cameras, our commissioners will not be able to meet, compare notes and violate Florida’s Sunshine law without repercussion. Come to think of it, forcing every public official to wear cameras would also save money since we will no longer have to pay unnecessary salaries to SA Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, COE Joseph Centorino and OIG Mary Cagle. Now imagine what kind of videos we would be privy to if those who are trusted to eradicate corruption but refuse to do so for political reasons could be recorded during the course of their daily encounters with prominent members of this community! And since we are going back to the days of McDuffie, how about if we had video archives of Commissioners Miriam Alonso, Pedro Reboredo, Jimmy Burke, Arthur Teele, etc. caught stealing while in office! Still going on but these days no one is watching. The list is endless! Yes cameras for the police but make sure that our politicians, the real thieves, are wearing them as well.