When U.S. President Barack Obama announced on December 1, 2014, that the federal government would commit $75 million to local law enforcement to purchase body-worn video cameras (BWCs), many community activists and politicians supported the movement as an investment that would expose officers to more scrutiny in the wake of a series of highly publicized police-involved death cases. The commitment also ignited fierce competition among BWC manufacturers vying for their share of the federal dollars. The promise of free money from Washington increased pressure on local agencies to put a BWC on every street cop to demonstrate that police can police the police. Now, more than a year into the post-Ferguson BWC experiment, many agencies are discovering the true cost of owning and maintaining a BWC infrastructure.