Eleanor Holmes Norton, a delegate who represents Washington, D.C., as a nonvoting member of Congress, has submitted a bill to require National Guard troops to wear body cameras while deployed in the nation’s capital.
The legislation would require that National Guard troops employ a body-worn camera program similar to the “well-established” one used by the Metropolitan Police Department, which President Donald Trump placed under federal control when he ordered the National Guard to the District.
“The Trump administration has deployed more than 2,000 troops to D.C. who are wholly unaccountable to D.C. residents. Even the D.C. National Guard troops are under the president’s control and do not report to the D.C. government,” Norton said in a statement.
She added, “This unwarranted deployment politicizes the military and does a disservice to members of the National Guard, who are being taken from their own families and jobs, and to D.C. residents, who neither requested nor consented to it.”
Norton said that “Body cameras would promote transparency and protect both the National Guard troops and D.C. residents from allegations of inappropriate or unlawful behavior.”
The congresswoman previously criticized the administration’s decision to allow National Guard troops to carry weapons during their deployment “despite D.C.’s crime rate being at a 30-year low,” saying in a statement: “A tenet of our democracy is that the military does not engage in civilian law enforcement, and it is not trained to do so in any case, which puts servicemembers and the public at risk. I urge you to end this gross abuse of power and withdraw the troops immediately.”
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