Anthony Allegrini Jr.’s death by police reveals lack of body cams for state troopers

Incidents like this clearly illustrate the need for body-worn cameras, said John Rago, a Duquesne University law professor.

“They haven’t been able to make this the kind of priority that I would have liked to have seen it to become,” he said.

Rago was involved with creating Act 22 — a law that allows law enforcement officers to use audio and visual recording devices without violating the state’s wiretapping law.

“These agencies have had enough time to settle in,” Rago said. “Six years after the fact, I just think and hope that this becomes a higher priority when you see these police-citizen encounters resulting in a citizen’s death.”

Police use-of-force, during fatal and nonfatal encounters, dropped by 10% after body-worn camera implementation, according to a 2021 study from the Chicago Crime Lab.

About 80% of local police departments with more than 500 employees equipped their officers with  body-worn cameras as of 2016. Those U.S. Department of Justice numbers are the most recent data available.

Enrique Latoison, an attorney for the Allegrini family, insists that body-worn camera footage could have been key to determining whether troopers followed protocol the night of Allegrini Jr.’s death.“We’re getting little bits of video from different people, you’re getting eyewitness testimony from people that saw something, but no one’s got it on video,” he said. “This is gonna come down to whether the officer was justified or not … a camera is unbiased.”

The Philadelphia House Delegation is calling for a “thorough investigation” of the shooting, according to a press release issued last week.

The officer who shot Allegrini Jr. is recovering from injuries, and was expected to return to work after a 72-hour administrative leave, McShea said the day after the shooting.

As far as a timeline for the Pa. State Police, McShea said there are plans to roll out a body-worn camera pilot program “in the coming months.”