Amid protests across the United States in the wake of the Ferguson, Missouri ruling, President Barack Obama announced Monday initiatives that would help ensure that a "militarized culture" does not pervade U.S. police departments.

Obama spoke to reporters at the end of a White House meeting with community leaders, civil rights activists and police detailing his plans on looking for ways to build trust between minority communities and police nationwide.

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At the same time, he is proposing the funding of a three-year, $263 million-dollar package which includes 50,000 body-worn cameras, expanded training and other resources for police departments. The Obama government has drawn flak before for channeling military resources such as full-body armor, night-vision glasses, Humvees and aircraft to local police.

The issue was reignited when the same military-issued equipment were used to disperse demonstrators in Ferguson protesting the decision of a grand jury not to indict now-resigned police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of an unarmed Michael Brown. In August, Obama said: "There is a big difference between our military and our local law enforcement and we don't want those lines blurred."

The president is now asking for Congress to buy lapel-mounted body-worn cameras which would record, like dashboard-mounted ones, police doing their job. The use of the cameras, pending privacy concerns and legal questions over who has access to recordings, could potentially resolve the kind of issues that arose between Wilson and some witnesses in Ferguson.

A Justice Department report said there is proof that people, whether police or civilian, behave better when they know that they are being monitored by cameras. In a year-long Cambridge University study in a city police department in California, a remarkable 89 percent decrease in the number of complaints against police officers was noted when body-worn cameras were used. The city has about 100,000 residents.

TagsBarack Obama