On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation requiring all state troopers to wear body cameras when on patrol. All three of the Tri-Lakes village police departments already have body camera programs, and they plan on keeping them.

The New York State Police has been one of the only state policing agencies in the U.S. without a body camera program, although a pilot program was announced in February.

Tupper Lake police Chief Eric Proulx said he thinks it may eventually be required that every law enforcement officer in the state wear one, so he is glad he’s had a body camera program implemented since 2015.

Saranac Lake police Chief James Joyce said his department was an early adopter of body cameras, back in 2011, and that “at this point it’s second nature.”

Lake Placid police Assistant Chief Chuck Dobson said his department has had the cameras for around three years.

“We like the way that it works,” Dobson said. “It keeps everyone accountable.”

Proulx said he has liked having a body camera program as he believes it protects both citizens and his officers. He said if someone has a complaint about an officer, their interaction should be captured on video, so it is not just the citizen’s word against the officer’s like it used to be. He said complaints against officers have dropped to almost zero since the body cameras were introduced.

“When people make a complaint and realize they have to come in to do something about it, they’re not quite sure the complaint they told me is exactly true,” Proulx said.

“If you’re doing the right thing, body cameras will help,” Joyce said.

When the state introduced new bail reform rules at the start of this year, several departments cut their body camera programs, or questioned ending them, because the time given for the evidence discovery phase of the criminal process was shortened. That includes body camera evidence, and the tightened timeline makes it hard for a small police department to process the video in time.

Dobson said that because of this, the Lake Placid department stopped using cameras during vehicle and traffic stops, unless it turns into a criminal investigation.

All departments said they plan on continuing their body camera programs now.

Proulx said he is keeping them because he believes they protect officers. That is more important than ever now, he said, because the state’s new police reform rules will make it easier to accuse police officers.

“It’s going to be too easy to accuse a cop of something, of wrongdoing,” Proulx said. “It’s going to be the person’s word against the cops, and I don’t think the cop is going to fare very well without some kind of video evidence.”