{"id":13482,"date":"2026-02-15T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mammoth-amount-of-police-bodycam-footage-becoming-a-headache-for-prosecutors\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:37:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:37:40","slug":"mammoth-amount-of-police-bodycam-footage-becoming-a-headache-for-prosecutors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mammoth-amount-of-police-bodycam-footage-becoming-a-headache-for-prosecutors\/","title":{"rendered":"Mammoth amount of police bodycam footage becoming a headache for prosecutors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango Police Department officer Caitlin Bills holds her body camera while on duty Thursday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The use of body cameras ushered in a new era of policing and judicial enforcement. And in the years following outcry over police brutality, the technology was made mandatory for agencies all over the U.S.<\/p>\n

Body cameras became mandatory for all law enforcement officers in Colorado in 2023, although agencies in La Plata County had already adopted them years earlier.<\/p>\n

The cameras have been a boon for prosecutors and law enforcement, providing a clear, second-by-second view of police activity that increases transparency, strengthens evidence and can disprove false allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone was scared of big brother watching when bodycams first came out, and now they\u2019ve figured out that nine times out of 10, it\u2019s saving them from false allegations and that kind of stuff,\u201d La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think anybody minds it at all. \u2026 everybody realizes it\u2019s a great tool that helps them do their job better.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as recording becomes universal and video piles up, agencies and prosecutors across Colorado face an unintended consequence: a flood of digital evidence that can be overwhelming and difficult to manage, placing strain on attorneys working to meet discovery deadlines.<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango Police Department has a total of 21 car cameras that are synced to officers body cameras. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In 2025, the Colorado Senate established an eDiscovery task force to assess the technology, discovery systems and related laws statewide. The group concluded the issue poses a serious problem and could threaten the \u201cfunctioning of a fair justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango Police Department Cmdr. Nick Stasi said that since the department first started using Axon\u2019s body cameras in 2018, the department alone has amassed 88 terabytes of footage \u2013 the equivalent of roughly 29 million smartphone photos. It would take a single person 11 months to view each photo for a second.<\/p>\n

That is a massive amount of data, which continues to grow every day as officers use their body-worn and dashboard-mounted cameras. Colorado Revised Statute 24-31-902<\/a> was signed into law in 2023, and required all law enforcement officers in the state to employ the use of body cameras.<\/p>\n

Sean Murray, district attorney for the 6th Judicial District, said the sheer amount of footage captured by law enforcement agencies around the state is significantly increasing the amount of time attorneys in the 6th District spend on cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there has been a decrease in the number of criminal cases in our judicial district over the last couple decades, the amount of time an attorney spends on a case has gone up dramatically,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n

The reason is because when multiple law enforcement officers respond to a given call, they are each required to turn on their body-worn cameras. Add in the dashcams from police vehicles, which are activated whenever the emergency lights are turned on, and the amount of footage an attorney has to sift through increases drastically.<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango Police Department has a total of 72 body cameras, some of them on the charger Thursday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe want to figure out exactly what happened,\u201d Murray said. \u201cThere might have been lots of officers that responded (to a given incident), and all of them, by statute, have to activate their body-worn camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stasi agreed, saying the footage from one incident with multiple officers may compound on itself, which is in turn a problem for the DA\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Stasi said DPD just renewed its $268,436 contract with Axon, a company that provides body dashboard and interview room cameras; video storage; AI software that transcribes and redacts the footage; tasers and taser cartridges; and a virtual reality training system. When body camera footage is captured, it is uploaded and categorized on DPD\u2019s database on Evidence.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo an officer might have a 45-minute video of a DUI,\u201d Stasi said. \u201cWhen we send it to the DA\u2019s office, they have that officer\u2019s video, they have every backup officer\u2019s video and the dashcam videos from each one. So now all of a sudden, they have four hours of video for a 45-minute incident. That is going to be a complexity for prosecutors all over the state to figure out, \u2018How do we watch all of this and manage all of this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray said there is no easy answer. The big hurdle is money \u2013 the public defender\u2019s office is funded through the state, while the DA\u2019s office is funded through the counties within its jurisdiction \u2013 which, in the 6th District\u2019s case, include La Plata, San Juan and Archuleta counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure how we\u2019re going to improve that,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know that the solution is there financially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray said the state can\u2019t send all the public defenders it wants to review bodycam footage. Similarly, the counties that make up the 6th Judicial District do not have the money to hire more attorneys at the DA\u2019s office \u2013 particularly with La Plata County, the most populous in the district, facing budgetary challenges.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango Police Department officer Caitlin Bills with her body camera that is synced with the car camera system while on duty on Thursday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While the amount of footage that needs to be reviewed may prove to be a pain for prosecutors, Stasi said the technology has had a largely positive impact on law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolicing has changed dramatically,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been here 17 years. Just the technology we use, the expectations the community has. It\u2019s different now than it ever was. But this technology, our officers are using it every day, and they love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stasi said the department has used body camera footage to discipline officers who acted out of line. On one occasion, the footage was used to disprove a person\u2019s claim that an officer touched her inappropriately while she was searched during a DUI arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went back and we watched the video, and it was clear as day that nobody touched her,\u201d Stasi said. \u201cEvery angle was covered. He did an appropriate search, then put her in a car and immediately cleared any accusation that an officer had acted inappropriately and it protected everybody on scene that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are still some kinks that must be worked out, though. For instance, an officer might accidentally activate a body camera and add useless film to the database, or may walk into the bathroom to relieve themselves without turning their camera off.<\/p>\n

Murray also pointed out that when an officer activates a camera, the camera will jump back 30 seconds before the activation. That gives a view into what happened directly before the camera was turned on. But, he said, audio is not captured until the initial activation.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Durango Police Department body cameras that are outdated will be recycled by the manufacturer Axon. The department trades out the old ones about every 2\u00bd years. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cA lot of the times when we\u2019re playing these body-worn cameras and dashcams in court, you can\u2019t hear anything on the video for the first 30 seconds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another kink is the outdated server systems and download times that accompany the transport of gigabytes of data between agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a defense attorney, your client is expecting you to breathe life into her constitutional rights to fair trial and effective assistance of counsel,\u201d said Justin Bogan, head of the Durango Public Defender\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Download speed can carry far greater consequences in trial preparation than it does for everyday internet use, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat time that it takes to download has an extra weight and adds to stress in a way that downloading a song or a video on your laptop doesn\u2019t come close to,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a mild inconvenience, it\u2019s a delay \u2013 sometimes one with very important consequences for everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

A critical component of ensuring fair and just practices within the judicial system is the discovery process, which requires prosecutors to provide the defense with all evidence related to a case. In Colorado, district attorneys generally must turn over discovery within 21 days.<\/p>\n

The deluge of electronic evidence has been identified as an added obstacle to meeting that deadline. The statewide eDiscovery task force report acknowledged that the growing volume of digital files can complicate prosecutors\u2019 ability to comply on time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Mr. Murray can speak to those issues better than I can, but I don\u2019t think the volume of video discovery has sped up the process,\u201d Bogan said when asked whether the issue has been observed locally.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office is preparing to overhaul how it stores and shares digital evidence, shifting from an on-premise WatchGuard server that is nearly out of space \u2013 about 56 terabytes and \u201cessentially full\u201d \u2013 to a cloud-based system, said Danielle Thurbur, LPCSO evidence director.<\/p>\n

The goal is to streamline how prosecutors access case materials. Under the new system, the District Attorney\u2019s Office will have a single landing page \u2013 described as a consolidated records view \u2013 where attorneys can see reports, digital evidence such as body-camera and in-car video, and logged physical evidence in one place.<\/p>\n

Currently, prosecutors often must click multiple download links, wait for large files to transfer and manually organize materials while staff members field follow-up questions to confirm whether all evidence was provided.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they have so many clicks on their side to be able to get it all into their file, it ends up causing rework for the agency as well as the District Attorney\u2019s Office to make sure everything that\u2019s been sent is actually on their side,\u201d Thurbur said.<\/p>\n

Murray said that at the end of the day, the footage is a beneficial thing on the court side as well. The adjustment to the new technology is just revealing some growing pains.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good thing, right? Spending more time on a case, making sure that everything that is presented in legal arguments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

sedmonson@durangoherald.com<\/a> <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mandatory equipment boosts transparency but creates growing workload for prosecutors, public defenders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,28,52,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-headlines","tag-law-enforcement","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19000,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13482\/revisions\/19000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13482"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}