WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans controlling the House are partially funding President Barack Obama’s request for police body cameras and new community policing initiatives, even as they again move to slash legal aid for the poor.
The move comes after violence followed the recent deaths at the hands of law enforcement in Baltimore, South Carolina and Ferguson, Missouri, which focused attention on police behavior and distrust between minority communities and the officers assigned to protect them.
Most of the money in next year’s modest $50 million fund to improve police-community relations would go to grants to states to assess and improve their justice systems, but $15 million would go to help local police departments buy body cameras that would record interactions with the public.
In December, Obama proposed a three-year, $263 million police plan.