Police body camera footage that involves a complaint against a peace officer must be released to the public within 21 days of a request, according to a 2020 Colorado law. But the question of whether a police department can charge for the footage is currently being considered by a Colorado court – after Boulder PD tried to charge a media organization $1,000 a minute for footage.
Court briefs recently submitted in a Boulder County District Court case – first reported by the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition — lay out arguments on both sides of the legal question.
In April, Yellow Scene Magazine sued the Boulder PD over its insistence that the news organization pay the city thousands of dollars to obtain video of the 2023 fatal shooting of 51-year-old Jeanette Alatorre by officers near the North Boulder Recreation Center. Officers say Alatorre appeared to pull a gun out of her purse before shooting her. The gun was later determined to be a replica of a pistol.
But when Yellow Scene asked for the body camera footage of the incident, the police department initially tried to charge the media outlet $1,000 a minute. Reporters narrowed their request to the 13-minute period showing Alatorre with the replica gun, for which the police department offered to charge only $1,425.
The plaintiffs point out that Colorado’s Law Enforcement Integrity Act, enacted in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, contains no language authorizing Boulder to charge fees for unedited body-cam footage of incidents “in which there is a complaint of peace officer misconduct.” But Boulder argues that the requested video is “indisputably” a criminal justice record under the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA), which permits the assessment of reasonable fees, not to exceed actual costs” for the search, retrieval and redaction of records.
CCJRA and the Law Enforcement Integrity Act “must be read in harmony,” wrote Luis Toro, senior counsel in the city attorney’s office, in a brief filed last week. “There is no conflict between the two statutes for the court to resolve. Both apply, and therefore, the city may charge for the time spent performing the (mandated) video blurring.”
Toro’s brief also argues that Yellow Scene’s position would have the Law Enforcement Integrity Act “imposing an unfunded mandate on local governments.” If the court agrees with Yellow Scene that the city is not allowed to charge fees for body-cam footage, the Law Enforcement Integrity Act “must be interpreted as making delivery of police video optional on the part of local government,” Toro contended.
The brief filed by Matthew Simonsen, attorney for Yellow Scene, notes that CCJRA allows a law enforcement agency to charge fees for the search, retrieval and redaction of criminal justice records “pursuant to this part 3” of the statute, making it “inapplicable” to the mandatory footage-release provisions in the Law Enforcement Integrity Act.
Under the Law Enforcement Integrity Act, all unedited video and audio recordings of incidents “in which there is a complaint of peace officer misconduct … through notice to the law enforcement agency involved in the alleged misconduct” must be released to the public no later than 21 days after a request is made.
Redactions are allowed if a video “raises substantial privacy concerns” for criminal defendants, victims, witnesses, juveniles or informants. This could include video depicting nudity, a sexual assault, a mental health crisis, a medical emergency or a “significantly explicit and gruesome bodily injury, unless the injury was caused by a peace officer.”
A hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for July 11.
