A Georgia police officer's body camera has captured his heroic efforts on the job after he rescued a toddler from a burning home,
USA Today reports.
When Sgt. Joe Hudson of the Griffin Police Department arrived ahead of firefighters at a home, his camera showed his brave response, running inside the burning structure to rescue the boy, whose grandmother said she could not locate the child in the blaze.
"I was looking everywhere and couldn't find him," Hudson, a 14-year veteran, told Atlanta TV station WXIA. "Smoke was starting to get to me, so I grabbed some clothes off her bed and put 'em to my face."
Hudson found the boy on his bed, picked him up and ran out, saving the youngster's life. He wrote that off as all part of his job.
"I did what I get paid to do," he said. "I'm supposed to do what others might not, so that's what I did. I earned my paycheck."
The issue of body cameras for officers came into sharper focus after the police shooting of an unarmed man in Ferguson, Missouri,
The Washington Post reported. While a grand jury declined to charge Officer Darren Wilson, others argued that the details of the incident would have emerged more clearly had he worn such a camera as a part of his uniform.
"The body camera is here to stay," Anne T. McKenna, a Baltimore lawyer and expert on electronic surveillance and privacy law, told the Post.
In Griffin, the police department's cameras were purchased with money donated from Waffle House after a officer was killed in a shooting at a restaurant, WXIA said. Officers there began wearing them on Jan. 1.
President Barack Obama has pushed federal funding for such cameras,
Fox News reported. Under his Body Worn Camera Partnership Program, state and local police would receive a 50 percent match to buy the lapel-mounted cameras that would capture police work firsthand.