Spokane County adopts new charge for public to get officer body camera footage

YouTubers, and the rest of the public, will need to put up some money to receive body camera footage from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

The Spokane County Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to enact a fee of 78 cents per minute of time it takes staff to obscure portions of film that state law says should not be public. The rate was determined by a cost analysis that factored what county employees are paid for the work and the amount of time they spend redacting footage.

The fee is intended to deter social media creators who make voluminous requests for footage, Spokane County Public Records officer Tony Dinaro said in a county meeting earlier this month.

However, the fees will be charged to any requester, save for a few exceptions. People requesting body camera footage they are directly involved in, or if they have a criminal or civil case for which the footage is pertinent, are among those who will not be charged. Their attorneys would also be exempt from the charges, and there is an additional carve-out for the executive directors of the Washington state commissions on African American Affairs, Asian Pacific American Affairs and Hispanic Affairs.

Some members of the public expressed their apprehension and displeasure with the policy during public testimony Tuesday, noting how the fees would also affect everyday members of the public seeking transparency.

Jim Leighty, a local activist involved with the Spokane Community Against Racism and the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, noted taxpayers already fund the public records office and the staff responsible for redacting body camera footage as dictated by state law.

“Implementing additional fees for the same work effectively asks the public to pay twice,” Leighty said.

Leighty also serves as the executive director of Citizen Nine26, a nonprofit dedicated to “helping people who have experienced injustices as a result of government misconduct,” according to the organization’s website. The group assists with public record requests and accessing Veteran Affairs benefits, among other things.

“At its core, this proposal risks creating a barrier to public access to records that are essential for transparency and accountability,” Leighty said. “Public record laws exist to ensure government actions remain open to scrutiny, not to discourage participation through added cost.”

Ahead of the vote, Commissioner Amber Waldref said she weighed transparency concerns and her previous position against allowing others to profit from someone’s interactions with law enforcement. She pointed to her stance against the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office contracting with the television program COPS as an example.

“I don’t think that it puts folks in the best light, and it’s using an incident that’s not really yours to benefit from,” Waldref said.

She said she understands the allure of the fee structure, and chose to support it, because it aligns with her previous position and due to the abundance of requests for footage from social media creators.

“The amount of time and energy and cost we put into it, it seems like one way to recoup and maybe deter some folks from wanting the video who are not really wanting it for transparency’s sake,” Waldref said.