A police union letter calling for arming city officers with long guns and stronger armor had some recoiling at a City Council hearing in Mattapan last night on police body cameras.

“I think that’s kind of bonkers,” said Segun Idowu, co-chairman of the Boston Police Camera Action Team, an activist group that has pushed for body cameras. “That leads to exactly what we’re trying to prevent, so that to me doesn’t make any sense.”

He called the union demands “bold” and questioned why they won’t move as swiftly on body cameras.

Police union letter

“I don’t see a need for municipal police officers to have military equipment,” added Roxbury resident Larry Howard, who said the idea reminded him of marching with civil rights protesters in Selma, Ala., and running up against heavily armed police.

Police Commissioner William B. Evans told city councilors last night he hoped to start the body camera pilot program, in which 100 officers wear the cameras for six months, on Sept. 1.

He referenced initial union opposition to the pilot, but said the union is now encouraging volunteers and praised the department’s performance in general, saying crime is down and officers have shown great restraint recently arresting armed men without using their own weapons.

“I don’t think any other department would have shown the restraint we have,” Evans said at the hearing.

But that view of a safe city doesn’t fit with the union’s demands, Idowu said.

“I’m a little confused as to why the unions distrust the people they’re supposed to protect and serve so much that they need body armor and guns to protect a community they say is safe,” he said.

Nia Evans, executive director of the Boston branch of the NAACP, agreed, saying the demand for long guns and body armor contradicted the department’s pride in community policing. And she said it showed a disconnect between the union’s concerns and those of people demanding body cameras to record incidents because of fear of police misconduct.

“It shows a lack of empathy for that trauma,” she said, “and then by the same token, they’re asking for empathy from the community in the opposite direction.”

As for the body cameras, some at the hearing wanted to know more about when the officers will turn the cameras on and off and who will review the video. Evans said cameras will be turned off for domestic violence interviews and sexual assault interviews.

Officers can review the video before they write their reports. Police are also looking at a cloud-based system to store the video clips.