In the wake of the police shooting in Ferguson, Mo. that sparked days of riots, looting and protests, the Ferguson Police Department is equipping officers with video microphones.

And now, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wants to take it one step further, tying the potential of federal funds for departments to those departments using video microphones.

“It seems to me that before we give federal funds to police departments, we ought to mandate that they have body cams,” McCaskill said last week.

But while Ferguson and other departments nationwide are finally finding the value of officers wearing cameras, Selma Chief of Police William T. Riley is asking, “what took so long?”

“We have had video mics on officers for almost four years now,” Riley said. “It has been amazingly beneficial to our officers and I cannot imagine why departments continue to not use them.”

Riley said a grant helped the department purchase 30 video microphones at the cost of $600 each.

“We have used them in developing better training and they have come in handy in the prosecution of a number of cases,” Riley said.

The most notable case involving video microphones came in December, when a Selma police officer shot and killed Ananias Shaw on Dec. 4. An officer shot Shaw when Shaw reportedly threatened that officer with a hatchet.

The resulting investigation by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation showed the officer acted correctly in the incident. Riley said the video from the incident proved valuable in clearing the officer of any wrongdoing.

Now, as other departments look to catch up where Selma is now, Riley said his department is need of additional funding to begin replacing the first generation of video microphones.

“Right now we have 10 that we need to have repaired and those costs start to add up,” Riley said. “The cameras we have now are a few years old. The newer cameras provide better quality and are built much better than the ones we purchased four years ago.”