The Bend Police Department is experimenting with wearable cameras for its police officers. It’s certainly a good idea to test them. Chief Jim Porter has legitimate reasons to want them. But there is also a downside.

Porter believes from talking to his colleagues around the country that if he can get cameras he is satisfied with, it will be better for the department. Having the video and audio from an incident could provide valuable evidence. It could help quickly clear up what happened. It could resolve an issue with a suspect as much as it could an issue with an officer.

And as we all know, when people know they are being watched or recorded, they can behave better. That could provide protection for officers and the public.

There are, of course, going to be costs for adding the cameras and maintaining them. Porter is concerned models may have problems with the cold. The department will also have to ask for perhaps another employee to spend half his or her time dealing with requests for the recordings.

The department has not finalized all the policies for the cameras. But Porter said there would be some incidents when it would be up to the officer’s discretion whether or not to turn the camera on. In others, it would be mandatory.

That is likely to create complications. It’s easy to imagine all sorts of scenarios. Officers may forget in the heat of the moment to turn a camera on, and that might be viewed as a deliberate attempt to conceal what happened.

As much as the cameras may provide more information about an incident, we can’t get over that the perceived need for them somehow implies that police cannot be trusted. We believe the Bend department has earned the public’s trust. And if it had not, cameras would not fix it.