On Monday, August 31, the Los Angeles Police Department assigned body cameras to its first patrol division. As the second largest city in the United States, this new policy is a significant, if insufficient, move towards the prevention of excessive police force and racial profiling.

“Ma’am, just go inside and go to bed please,” the Daytona police officer, Brian Biddix*, told 38-year-old Milena Chiri, after questioning Chiri and her husband, Johan Chiri, about a domestic violence call. Johan was accusing his wife of having an affair. And even though this was the fourteenth time the police had been…