Rio Grande City ups fees for police body, dash camera footage

Anyone wanting to receive dash camera or body-worn camera footage from the Rio Grande City Police Department will be paying significantly more for it after commissioners voted to levy steep new fees for copies at a meeting last month.

 

Anyone can request body camera video and dashcam footage from police departments under the Texas Public Information Act, though departments are allowed to charge to release that information.

 

Assistant Chief Jose Solis told commissioners Rio Grande City PD has previously only charged $3 per DVD and $1 per CD for requests.

 

Texas law also allows entities to charge as much as $10 per recording and $1 per full minute of footage on the recording.

 

 

Solis recommended commissioners set those rates at the max, which he says at least some neighboring communities have done.

 

“Mission, city of Edinburg, city of Pharr all follow these guidelines,” he said. “Did contact city of McAllen, but they do not. They’re currently following the one that we use because of shortages of body cams.”

 

According to Solis, the department gets lots of requests for footage from private citizens, law firms and insurance companies.

 

“So it will increase the amount of money that we charge. Because we get tons of requests,” he said.

 

Solis said the department funnels money it receives for open records requests to community-oriented initiatives and that he expects the new fees to be implemented sometime this month.