The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association is seeking an injunction that would stop the department from ordering police officers to wear body cameras as part of a pilot program slated to begin next week, the organization announced today.

The association, which represents 1,500 BPD officers, filed paperwork in Suffolk Superior Court earlier today to seek an injunction aimed at preventing a pilot program that would have 100 randomly selected Hub police officers wearing body cameras beginning Sept. 2.

“We worked hard with officials of the City and the Department to bring the citizens of Boston a body camera pilot program that made sense and protected everyone’s rights,” BPPA President Patrick Rose said in a statement. “The City and the Union agreed from day one that the best way to go was to make it a voluntary program. The BPPA can’t stand by and allow the City to blatantly violate the agreement it signed just over a month ago — we had to act and act quickly to prevent this miscarriage of justice.”

In papers filed in Superior Court today, the BPPA says it argued that allowing the city to implement a mandatory body camera pilot program before an arbitrator rules would make the arbitration process “a hollow formality.”

“Furthermore, the BPPA draws the Court’s attention to a large-scale 2016 Rand Corporation study showing that officers wearing body cameras are no less likely to use force but are 15% more likely to be assaulted than officers without cameras,” the association’s announcement read. “The BPPA argues that both the damage to the collectively-bargained arbitration process and the increased risk of harm to officers from the City’s unilateral action constitute irreparable harm and that only injunctive relief can provide a remedy.”

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