After more than a decade, MPD's plan for body cameras is still sketchy

Yahara Flyer | Flight 002| October 2026

In part two of a running series on police body cameras, I examine the story we tell ourselves about why the Madison Police Department doesn't have them force-wide yet. I also examine a very incomplete plan that will now speed up with a push from a private foundation. I'll take a break from this subject next issue, promise.

A special autumnal edition of Crane's Croak, featuring an apple dispatch from Jesse Raub, also known as JR Appleman.

Find it in print while copies last, or subscribe at the $10/month Marsh level or above for the option to receive issues by mail. Grab the PDF below if you'd like to read it on a tablet or e-reader.

After more than a decade, MPD's plan for body cameras is still sketchy

A September 20 editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal offers a dangerously pure dose of Madison’s prevailing body-camera narrative.

It notes that the Madison Police Department conducted a pilot study with bodycams in 2024 in its North District, but “Regrettably, the City Council failed to equip officers after the trial period ended.” This telling jumps over a lot of context. None of it is obscure. Here’s a rough timeline—admittedly just the latest stretch of an argument Madison has been having since at least 2014.

November 2024: MPD delivers its report from the bodycam pilot. By now, Alders have already finalized the City’s 2025 budget. Then-MPD Chief Shon Barnes writes that he plans to “make the acquisition of BWCs a priority for the 2026 budget.”

The resolution authorizing the pilot called for a randomized controlled trial. The researcher MPD hired did not conduct one. Alders asked MPD to assess the costs of “officer time and administrative staff time needed for body-cam related tasks and training.” The report ignores the “officer time” part.

December 2024: Barnes accepts an offer to become police chief in Seattle. He will leave Madison before the 2026 budget process begins. Barnes was the first MPD chief to really push hard for bodycams. But he was clearly even more eager to leave Madison, and achieved that goal first.

April 2025: Interim Chief John Patterson writes in MPD’s capital budget request for 2026: "While the MPD remains an outlier without a broad deployment of body worn cameras, more time is needed to estimate and understand the related operating costs that will accompany this project."

October 2025: The Office of the Independent Police Monitor releases a follow-up report on MPD’s pilot study. OIM data analyst Greg Gelembiuk finds that the study used faulty data to measure bodycams’ impact on arrest numbers. Except for WORT, local news outlets ignore this.

November 2025: Three Alders introduce a last-minute budget amendment that would defund the Independent Monitor and partially fund five new bodycam-related positions at MPD. There’s barely time for debate, or anything of substance to debate. The amendment acknowledges that MPD still “would need to develop an operating cost plan” and gives the Chief “discretion in allocation (sic) funding for other expenses related to BWC implementation.” It’s basically screaming “this is not serious, TBD, IOU” at every turn. The other 17 Alders vote it down.

Want to understand just how slight this proposal was? Here's the full text of the amendment:

May 2026: In MPD’s 2027 capital budget request, Patterson asks the City to borrow $414,800 across three years to buy 220 cameras, implementing them in MPD’s North District in 2027, then expanding department-wide across 2028 and 2029.

MPD still has a lot of estimating and understanding to do. Patterson proposes to figure out the operating costs of a bodycam program while implementing it. MPD has estimated in the past that bodycams would require five new administrative staff positions. Patterson plans to start those hires in 2028. This proposal mostly accounts for buying the cameras themselves. That is barely the tip of the iceberg. The real cost is not hardware but ongoing software licenses and a whole lot of staff hours. (Spoiler alert: Private funding will eventually buy MPD some time on this front. More on that later!)

July 22, 2026: MPD officers murder Corey Ruiz. The ensuing response from local media, elected officials, and MPD is heavily focused on bodycams. Opinion pieces lament that the debate has already gone on too long.

July 30, 2026: Barnes is fired as Seattle’s police chief after botching the response to a mass shooting and trying to bully a reporter who asked about his frequent absences from Seattle. Barnes could have stayed under the Vaseline-smeared lens of Madison media and likely won bodycams by now, but alas. Can’t keep this guy on an isthmus!

September 8, 2026: Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway releases her 2027 executive capital budget, which incorporates MPD’s bodycam request.

September 14, 2026: During a budget hearing, Patterson revises the number of proposed new bodycam-related staff positions from five to three.

September 20, 2026: The State Journal editorial board has been on a tear. Week after week, they slip back into the bodycam crusade like a favorite pair of fart-pummeled khakis.

This latest installment contains a brazen distortion. Here’s the eighth paragraph in full:

Madison police on the city’s North Side were wearing cameras on their uniforms two years ago as part of a three-month pilot program that a university researcher determined was successful. Use of the cameras didn’t increase charges against people accused of crimes, as some City Council members feared, according to the researcher. What they did do is better ensure the fair application of law enforcement and justice.

The first two sentences check out, as far as representing the findings accurately. (Never mind that Gelembiuk challenged the data behind these findings.) But at no point did the study say that bodycams “better ensure[d] the fair application of law enforcement and justice.” That would contradict findings that the cameras didn’t change officers’ behavior one way or the other. The study says “the BWC pilot had little to no effect on” survey responses measuring perceptions of MPD’s fairness. It compares arrest and charge figures to determine whether or not they changed during the pilot, not whether “justice” was better or worse served in those cases. It finds “no effect of the BWC pilot on arrests, cases, or citations.”

Other bodycam studies—based on data from other places—sometimes find positive effects and sometimes don’t. A statement of opinion to either effect would be defensible. Instead, the State Journal alchemizes a general belief into something that did happen in a specific context. This isn’t merely a rosy interpretation of the pilot study. It is completely made up.

September 24, 2026: The Madison Community Foundation (MCF) announces that it will provide $350,000 to cover one year of operating costs—three new staff positions and software so that MPD can implement bodycams force-wide by the end of 2027. After that, the City will need to fully fund the program. Officials will also seek federal grants.

OK, long history lesson,but it demonstrates how much has gotten lost in the outcry. It demonstrates that MPD and its allies have at times been ineffective or disingenuous in their own bodycam advocacy. There was no serious bodycam proposal for the Common Council to vote on in the 18 months following the 2024 pilot, just a bizarre procedural faceplant from a few MPD allies on Council. So yes, Alders failed to act on non-existent plans. Alders have complained for years about MPD’s lack of budget and policy clarity on bodycams, and failed to act on answers MPD didn’t provide. Apparently this is a greater affront to public trust than shooting a man in the head three times when he’s already on the ground.

MPD had three years to fill out the blank spaces in its initial 2027 proposal. Now that MCF is helping to frog-march us even faster toward bodycams, MPD has one year. The gaps aren’t just financial, either. MPD is still revising its standard operating procedure for bodycams. As we head toward final votes on the City budget in November, it sure looks like the Common Council will cave before getting all those answers. TBD, IOU.

Crane's Croak: Special Autumnal Apple Edition!

• Orchards are rolling out the early-season apples, and small-scale orchards rely on diverse cultivars to extend their fruiting seasons. That means that you may miss a life-changing apple by one literal week. What you will probably notice with rotating cultivars on small orchards is the acidity level—most grocery apples have their brightness bred out of them, or are grown too quickly in mass quantities to concentrate their flavors. But snag a tiny Arkane or Sir Prize and prepare to pucker. You can also expect a broader flavor diversity. Many cultivars are lightly floral and aromatic (Sweet Maia, St. Edmund’s Russet), but the Chestnut Crab is a true seasonal standout. Rich, sweet, and with a complex spiced flavor, it tastes almost exactly like you’re drinking fresh-pressed cider. 
—J.R. Appleman, reporting from Blue Roof Orchard in Belmont, Wisconsin.
• Madison bar magazine sighting: The Drake (Tagline: “For those who fish.” Cover price: “TEN BUCKS. $20 for bait fishermen.”) Bar location withheld to avoid involvement in obscure fishing disputes.
• Submit your anecdotes, observations, bar-reader sightings, and other brief miscellany to Crane’s Croak at: cranescroak@proton.me