Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department Looking to Charge Fee for Body Camera Footage

The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department may soon start charging for the release of body camera footage. Sheriff Jeff Richwine brought the idea to the county council earlier this month. “You know, we’ve got the new body cameras going and now, we’ve got our first requests for video, and I think we’re allowed, by law, to charge a fee for those videos,” Richwine said. “And I didn’t know if that was set or if the council sets that fee. I’m sure I just can’t say, as the sheriff, I want to charge $100.”

County Attorney Kevin Tankersley explained that the fee for public requests is determined by state statute. He said police departments are not allowed to charge much more than what it costs them to duplicate the videos.

But Richwine said that can vary widely. “There’s some of these videos, it’s going to take hours for an employee to redact,” the sheriff explained. “There’s some things you can’t release, and so we have to make sure that that’s redacted out of there before we release it. And that was part of these new body cameras, we got the software to do that. But it still takes an employee some time to do that. So I guess I want to come and figure out what we want to charge as a fee for that.”

Tankersley previously said that only certain people are allowed to get copies of body camera footage. In addition to public requests, Circuit Court Judge Mary Welker said it will also have to be determined who’s responsible for getting the videos to defense attorneys, including public defenders.