The City of Boulder has responded to a lawsuit over the fees it charges for officer body camera footage by arguing such payments are necessary to recover costs associated with processing records requests.
Yellow Scene Magazine, which covers Boulder County and the Denver metro region, filed a complaint in the Boulder County District Court on April 10, alleging the city violated a 2020 Colorado police accountability law by charging “prohibitive sums of money” for body camera footage of a recent fatal police shooting.
The lawsuit stems from a request for body camera footage related to the fatal shooting of Jeanette Alatorre by two city officers on Dec. 17, 2023. The case has implications for public access to video evidence of police use of force and possible misconduct.
The 2020 Law Enforcement Integrity Act, passed in response to national protests over fatal police shootings, requires law enforcement agencies to release all body camera footage and audio recordings of incidents if someone files a complaint. The plaintiffs argue the city, therefore, cannot charge fees for body camera footage of fatal shootings following a complaint into the incident. The law does not explicitly mention fees.
The city argues that fees are necessary to recover costs associated with blurring and muting sections of footage for privacy and other reasons.
“Yellow Scene urges the Court to interpret the [Law Enforcement Integrity Act] as imposing an unfunded mandate on local governments,” a lawyer for the city wrote in the May 30 response to the lawsuit.
The City of Boulder often responds to records requests by citing a separate state law allowing law enforcement agencies to charge “reasonable fees” for records. The police department has said it charges about $30 for each hour of body camera footage for “research and review.” These charges can add up. The city requested that the magazine pay $1,425 for footage of a 13-minute period during the incident, according to the lawsuit.
Earlier this year, lawmakers introduced a bill that would have made it explicit that law enforcement agencies could not charge fees for body camera footage under certain circumstances. The bill, HB24-1460, was backed by Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat from Denver who was a lead sponsor on the 2020 police accountability legislation. Herod told Boulder Reporting Lab this year’s bill was partly inspired by the lawsuit against the City of Boulder. It was later narrowly voted down in the House.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit view the bill as evidence that lawmakers never intended for law enforcement agencies to be able to charge fees for body camera footage following complaints of misconduct. But the city sees the failure of the legislation as support for its case.
“Its rejection is powerful evidence that the General Assembly does not intend for municipalities to provide video free of charge when there has been an allegation of police misconduct,” the city wrote in its legal brief.
The city did not file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Instead, it is seeking an order from the judge allowing the city to continue charging “reasonable fees” or a declaration that the release of body camera footage is optional, not mandatory. The case could proceed to a trial.
“Their lack of commitment to meaningful transparency, in defiance of the 2020 Law Enforcement Integrity Act, is incredibly disappointing,” Dan Williams, a lawyer with the local civil rights firm Hutchinson Black and Cook who is representing the magazine, told Boulder Reporting Lab in an email.
Police shootings led to three deaths in Boulder County in 2023. In May 2023, City of Boulder officers shot and killed a 36-year-old man who was armed with a handgun after responding to a domestic violence call. On Dec. 17, city officers shot and killed Alatorre, 51, after residents reported she had pointed what appeared to be a handgun at drivers near the North Boulder Recreation Center. It turned out to be a replica weapon designed to resemble a pistol. And on Dec. 24, three Boulder County deputies and a state patrol officer shot and killed a 50-year-old man who was armed with a handgun during an encounter on U.S. 36, according to law enforcement officials.
In all the cases, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office did not file criminal charges against the officers, stating they were in imminent danger and did not commit a crime that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
seems to me that since the police are paid with our tax dollars, they work for us, not to mention that body cam footage could be essential in a court of law, that the footage belongs to we the people.