Walker, Hamilton & Koenig attorney Walter “Skip” Walker has been selected to represent the voice of the plaintiffs’ bar at a conference on the development of a statewide training program on the police use of body cameras. This conference, held by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, will bring together representatives from local governments and police departments, the ACLU, and attorneys for police unions with the goal of developing scenarios for, outlining, and then creating a training video that will be distributed to all California law enforcement agencies for training their line level officers on the use of body cameras.

The use of police body cameras has become a subject of increased interest and attention around the country, especially in the wake of controversial police shootings in Ferguson, Cleveland, and Charleston, South Carolina where a bystander’s use of his own camera brought an egregious homicide to light. As they are more widely implemented, body cameras will be a valuable tool in preventing civil rights abuses by police officers and in bringing abuses that do occur to light. For this to occur, however, officers must be trained on the appropriate use of body cameras. With decades of experience fighting for victims of civil rights abuses in the civil forum, Skip is honored to have been selected to lend his expertise to this important task.