Miles Partman held up a compact disc during a public hearing Thursday before the Seattle City Council's Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee.

The hearing was to discuss a proposed pilot program to test body cameras, which would be worn by Seattle police officers. Partman, like the majority of speakers who addressed the committee, said the hands-free cameras, which record audio and video, would help build public trust in the force and improve police accountability.

The disc in Partman's hands, he said, was a video recording of a police-accountability rally in March. Partman was arrested and charged "but today I was found not guilty because somebody had a video camera that day."

Court records confirm that Partman was charged with pedestrian interference in Seattle Municipal Court and that a jury took a little over an hour Thursday to find him not guilty.

"Video is going to show what's right," Partman said.

Councilmember Bruce Harrell, who chairs the committee, said Mayor Mike McGinn has expressed support for a pilot program to test the cameras "in the field," recording real-time contacts between officers and citizens.

"I'm hoping the testimony we've seen today ... may influence what the mayor proposes" in the city's general operating budget that is expected to be released this month, he said.

The budget will indicate support or lack of it for the department to go through with a trial, Harrell said.

Money is an issue since a 30- to 60-day pilot program involving 70 officers would cost an estimated $243,000 — and a request for federal funds to cover the pilot is on hold due to the ongoing federal budget debate.

Harrell and Councilmember Nick Licata, the only members of the four-person committee to attend the hearing, discussed the possibility of a smaller pilot involving four to 10 officers that could be paid for with city money.

But legal questions about the state's privacy laws still must be worked out, and the city will need to negotiate with the Seattle Police Officers' Guild before a body-camera trial can go forward.

Harrell, Assistant Police Chief Dick Reed and legal advisers also discussed the need to create clear policies and procedures for using the cameras.

Several speakers from the city's Native-American and African-American communities said they wished former Seattle police Officer Ian Birk had been wearing a body camera when he fatally shot John T. Williams, a First Nations woodcarver, on a city street Aug. 30, 2010.

A portion of the incident was captured by the dashboard camera installed in Birk's patrol car, though the actual shooting was not caught on video.

Birk resigned later, and the city paid $1.5 million to the Williams family.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Police Department after a string of confrontations between officers and minority citizens, including the Williams shooting. Harrell noted during the hearing that DOJ investigators recommended that the Cincinnati Police Department issue body cameras to its officers after a similar investigation there.

"I like to think that having a body camera would've made Officer Birk a bit more cautious" and would have provided a view of what he saw when he fired on Williams four seconds after climbing out of his patrol car, said Nellie Basher, who identified herself as a niece of Williams.

Pamela Masterman Stearns, president of the city's Native American Employees Association, said body cameras are "the best long-term solution" to solving crime and promoting respect and equal treatment of citizens.

"The cameras will literally pay for themselves," she said. "People on both sides of the badge will behave better" if they know their words and actions are being recorded.

The Rev. Harriet Walden, executive director of Mothers for Police Accountability, voiced support for cameras, as did Oscar Eason Jr., state conference president for the NAACP in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Eason said his years of activism "may have been a lot less stressful" if the technology for body cameras had previously existed to record contacts between officers and members of the city's minority communities.

Seattle Times news researcher David Turim contributed to this report, which includes information from Times archives.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com