Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano is pushing to put body cameras on patrol officers, but Police Benevolent Association President Detective Keith Olson is highly concerned about when body camera footage is to be released after instances when police use force.

Also PBA President Det. Keith Olson says he would prefer to have more officers than the cameras.

Yonkers Community Activists who took to the streets in protest say the footage will be released as soon as possible because the communities of color wants transparency in the city of hills.

Yonkers had at least six excessive force complaints last year.

The Yonkers PD Commissioner is pushing for an initial 90-day trial that would outfit the city’s approximately 400 patrol officers with body cameras.

The Yonkers City Council will have to vote for a bond to pay for the initial cost of the police body cameras.

The initial cost for the program would come to just over a million a year for the storage of the videos.

Yonkers was forced to enacted several police reforms after the U.S. Justice Department began investigating Yonkers in 2007 because of complaints about excessive force and race-based policing.

UPDATE: Yonkers Police Department Det. Keith Olson has told us that he has never said anything like the statement you’ve attributed to him concerning the release of body cam video to the public and / or media.|

Technically, what others have told us about Det. Keith Olson‘s position on the body cam footage release is hearsay, so we will take his word that he has no concerns on how The City of Yonkers releases the Yonkers Police Department video footage.

To be fair we should have said “some have said that Police Benevolent Association President Detective Keith Olson is highly concerned about when body camera footage is to be released after instances when police use force.”

Police Benevolent Association President Detective Keith Olson statements on the issue can be found here;

https://www.facebook.com/groups/YonkersNewswire/permalink/2689696677954560/