The NYPD began training cops on the use of police body cameras on Wednesday, just hours before a grand jury announced it would not indict Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold.
Training on use of the cameras began one month earlier than planned, according to the New York Daily News.
CBS New York's Jessica Schneider reports that the cameras will hit the streets by the end of the week.
Staten Island's 120th Precinct, where a bystander filmed Garner's death in July, is among those included in the program's launch, along with other areas where stop and frisk was heavily used, according to the New York Post.
Gawker points out that the camera program was ordered by a federal judge following a civil rights lawsuit last year.
The NYPD announcement came after President Barack Obama proposed a three-year, $263 million investment to increase use of police body cameras and expand training for law enforcement agencies nationwide.
City officials anticipated demonstrations in advance of the decision in the Garner case Wednesday, according to Reuters:
Officials on Staten Island, the city's smallest borough and site of Garner's death, have been told to expect a heightened police presence in the wake of violent protests last week after a grand jury in Missouri did not charge a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen in August.
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