Lawmen from across the state gathered Tuesday in the Well of the Legislative Office Building in Albany, unified in support of making video recordings of all Q and A sessions between police and suspects who have been taken into custody during a criminal investigation. Albany County D-A David Soares says the videos can be extremely effective tools. New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services Acting Commissioner Sean Byrne announced that federal money is available to assist in the program. The funds are targeted to law enforcement agencies that did not receive any Byrne funding directly from the federal government. Equipment requests will only be considered if the agencies making those requests don't already have video recording capacity.

Police and sheriffs' agencies in more than 40 counties - including Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady in the Capital Region and the New York State Police - have voluntarily implemented video recording of custodial interrogations.