Boulder asks Colorado Supreme Court to review ruling on police body camera fees

The City of Boulder is petitioning the Colorado Supreme Court to review a Colorado Court of Appeals ruling that found the city cannot charge fees for body camera footage related to a complaint of officer misconduct under a 2020 police accountability law.

Supporters of the appeals court decision called it a major win for police transparency and accountability across Colorado. But the city said in a June 18 petition to the Supreme Court that it would impose “enormous ongoing costs” on law enforcement agencies.

The petition marks the latest development in a lawsuit filed by Yellow Scene Magazine, which covers Boulder County and the Denver metro area, after the city required journalists to pay more than $8,000 for body camera footage of a December 2023 shooting in which officers killed Jeanette Alatorre. The lawsuit argued the fees were “prohibitive” and effectively shielded the footage from public disclosure.

Civil rights attorneys argued the charges violated the Law Enforcement Integrity Act, a Colorado police accountability law enacted in 2020 following national protests over police killings. The law requires agencies to release footage within 21 days of any incident involving a misconduct complaint and includes no provision for fees.

Boulder is arguing that the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act, a separate state law, allows agencies to charge “reasonable fees” for records. The city has also argued that because the legislature never appropriated funding for the review and production of recordings, an “unfunded mandate” law made the city’s obligations optional. The appeals court ruling would render that statute a “dead letter” in all circumstances, the city said.

Boulder is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court ruling or to vacate the judgment and order the lower court to reconsider it in light of People v. Bell, a May 2026 Colorado Supreme Court decision involving pretrial discovery materials, which was decided after the Court of Appeals ruled in the Yellow Scene case. The court ruled that a defendant’s counsel was entitled to pretrial discovery materials in a postconviction proceeding without paying fees. 

The Colorado Supreme Court has no deadline to decide whether to take up the petition. The court granted review in about 6% of the 767 certiorari petitions filed in fiscal year 2025.

The police department charged about $30 per hour to review footage at the time Yellow Scene made its request. The city quoted Yellow Scene $2,857 for the request, which was made under the Law Enforcement Integrity Act, according to records shared by the city. The magazine said it did not have the funds to pay the fee. Separately, the city quoted Boulder Reporting Lab $8,484 for all body camera footage related to the incident.

Dan Williams, a lawyer representing Yellow Scene, said lawmakers passed a law mandating that body-camera footage be promptly released without charge when there is a report of police misconduct.

“Boulder’s desire to avoid the cost of releasing these videos by charging the requester fees would render the legislature’s decision to have these videos released promptly after a police shooting an empty promise, because the costs Boulder seeks to charge are prohibitive to community members and small news outlets,” Williams said.

Update: This story was updated on June 22 with a comment from Dan Williams. The story was updated again on June 23 to include additional details about Yellow Scene’s request and the quote provided by the city.