Minnesota’s debate about police body-cameras played on last week, while the aftermath of the Jamar Clark police shooting played out in Minneapolis.

As lawmakers approach decisions about the small cameras typically clipped onto an officer’s uniform, pressures abound, with the Clark case among those bringing calls for heightened accountability and transparency.

All the more reason, then, for a deliberate approach and a thorough airing of the trade-offs involved — deciding what gets recorded, who sees it and when, what becomes public and what doesn’t and who bears the costs.

It seems clear that a thorough airing, involving a variety of perspectives, not just those of groups immediately and directly affected, will not happen in the current legislative session.

So, rather than a rush to make policy, Minnesotans — both those in police blue and civilians — will be best served, for now, by the status quo.

During a hearing in December, Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Vernon Center, a bill author and key committee chair on the matter, asked: “Is the whole world going to fall apart if we don’t have a bill?”

We think not.

Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, another bill author and committee chair, suggested a reasonable path forward, according to an Associated Press report last week: that issues be worked out by a task force after the Legislature adjourns.

If lawmakers wait until more of them are better informed, as they should, existing law prevails. It stipulates that most footage body cameras collect is presumed public, except in certain situations — for example, while a criminal investigation is under way or if footage would reveal the identity of sexual assault victims.

The body cam debate involves power, says Rich Neumeister of St. Paul, a longtime watchdog and activist on data practices. “There is power with the use of the body camera. Who has that power — the guidelines and rules — is what the legislation is all about,” he wrote in a blog post.

It’s a discussion dominated by competing interests. The Pioneer Press’ Tad Vezner laid them out this way:

— Law enforcement officials see cameras as both an investigative tool and protection against phony complaints, but worry about residents hesitating to call them to their homes and witnesses clamming up because everything might be recorded.

— Police watchdog groups note that the main point of body cameras is transparency. “So what’s the use if the footage can’t be seen, except in rare instances?” they ask. “Why is everyone worrying about what cops want, instead of what the public wants?”

— Civil libertarians worry about police having unrestricted recordings of the inside of homes — whether or not it’s relevant to a case at hand.

Don Gemberling, also of St. Paul and a state leader on freedom-of-information and privacy matters, told our editorial board in a meeting with representatives of the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information (MNCOGI) that he’d like to see “a higher-level discussion” — around the questions of just what is it that we’re trying to do, and why? But, he said, “it’s not happening.”

Neumeister has observed a need for “grassroots community organizations ‘at the table’ who represent people in a unique way ‘in the community.”’

There’s a difference, he argues, between a representative of law enforcement who considers a body camera a law enforcement tool and lobbies for secrecy of videos and “the person or community who sees police behavior that is abrasive and abusive or sees and experiences racial bias and profiling.”

The necessary debate has to be about balance among competing interests and principles, as the Pioneer Press’ Ruben Rosario observed in a recent column, weighing the public’s right to see videos against privacy concerns of those on camera.

Among the issues: In addition to the bounds of privacy, considerations include who should see the footage, when cameras should be turned on and off, when videos should be made available, how long videos should be retained and whether officers should be able to view videos before writing their reports.

We’ve also heard concerns that videos might not tell the entire story of an incident, that portions might be taken out of context and that they could be used to discipline officers or micromanage them.

Cost, too, is an issue, with questions about expenses for equipment, storage and retrieval.

Meanwhile, cameras are in use around the state. According to a survey last summer by the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, about 40 police departments have indicated they have at least one body camera.

In St. Paul, how they’re implemented will depend on what happens at the Capitol, a police spokesman told us, but the department’s plan called for a pilot program this summer, with deployment of body cams in 2017.

In Burnsville, Chief Eric Gieseke recently was honored by MNCOGI for providing a model for use of the technology by other law enforcement agencies across the state.

Ours may be an anything-goes world where anyone with a cellphone can record virtually anything, but with police body cams there’s too much at stake to rush to a conclusion.

Minnesotans should be wary of legislative maneuvers that would cut short the hard work of analyzing the trade-offs and finding the right balance.

If it takes another year to produce a well-informed Legislture, fine.

— St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 3