Colorado's right to record police, and the $500 payout if an officer deletes it

Section 16-3-311 was added by House Bill 15-1290 and took effect on May 20, 2016, and its text has not been amended since. Subsection (1) states the right and the limit on seizure in a single breath. Subsection (2)(a) then tells the officer what to do if the recording is wanted as evidence: before asking for the device, the officer must give a name, a badge number or other identifying number, and the name of the law enforcement agency, must identify the legal reason the information is requested, and must, where practicable, ask whether you will voluntarily supply a copy of the specific recording, either by handing over the device or by transferring the file electronically so that you keep the device and everything private on it. If you do hand the device over, subsection (2)(b) confines the officer's search to the relevant recording and requires the device back on request "with all convenient speed."

The outer limit is subsection (2)(e). An officer may seize and hold a recording device for no longer than seventy-two hours to obtain a search warrant, and only where exigent circumstances exist such that the officer believes seizure is necessary to save a life, or where the officer has a reasonable, articulable, good-faith belief that seizure is necessary to prevent destruction of the evidentiary recording while the warrant is sought. Two carve-outs cut the other way: subsection (3) says the section does not apply to devices seized incident to arrest, and subsection (4) says nothing in it allows a person to interfere with an officer in the lawful performance of duty.

Interference has a high statutory bar in Colorado. Obstructing a peace officer under C.R.S. § 18-8-104(1)(a) requires "using or threatening to use violence, force, physical interference, or an obstacle," and subsection (1.5), added by S.B. 21-271 effective March 1, 2022, forbids charging that offense because a person remained silent or voiced opposition to an order. Colorado's eavesdropping statute does not reach open filming either: C.R.S. § 18-9-304(1) applies only to a person "not visibly present during a conversation or discussion" who records it without the consent of at least one principal party, so a visible bystander recording an encounter is outside the offense entirely.

The damages route is C.R.S. § 13-21-128, enacted alongside § 16-3-311 in H.B. 15-1290. It gives a right of recovery against the officer's employing agency where an officer destroys or damages a recording or device, seizes one without permission, court order, or other lawful grounds, intentionally interferes with a lawful attempt to record, retaliates for recording, or refuses to return a device within a reasonable time without legal justification. "Retaliation" is defined by reference to the harassment offense at § 18-9-111. The claimant files an affidavit with the agency setting out the facts, the damage, and a verifiable replacement estimate, and may claim five hundred dollars as the value of the recording itself. The agency then has thirty days to pay or to issue a written denial. A denial opens a civil action for actual damages, the replacement value of the device, the five hundred dollars, and filing costs, with punitive damages up to fifteen thousand dollars and attorney fees available where the court finds the denial was made in bad faith. The section also preserves a criminal referral for tampering with physical evidence under § 18-8-610, and warns that a frivolous suit can be met with the agency's costs and fees.

The other half of Colorado's recording law is the officer's own camera. Under C.R.S. § 24-31-902, enacted by S.B. 20-217 in 2020, every local agency and the Colorado State Patrol had to issue body-worn cameras to public-facing officers by July 1, 2023, and an officer must activate the camera during any interaction with the public that the officer initiates for law enforcement purposes. Failure to activate, or tampering with the footage, creates a permissive inference that the missing footage would have shown misconduct, and a rebuttable presumption that the officer's unrecorded statements are inadmissible. As amended by Senate Bill 26-190, effective June 3, 2026, subsection (2)(a)(I) requires an agency to release all unedited video and audio of an incident to any person who requests it within twenty-one days of the request, once a misconduct complaint has been made, where the incident did not result in a death.

The remedy for an unlawful seizure or deletion is civil and runs against the agency, not the individual officer. § 13-21-128(1)(b) the aggrieved device owner submits an affidavit to the employing law enforcement agency with the facts, the damage, and a verifiable replacement estimate, and may claim five hundred dollars as the value of a destroyed recording; the agency has thirty days to pay or to deny in writing. A denial supports a civil action under subsection (1)(c) for actual damages, the replacement value of the device, the five hundred dollars, and filing costs, with punitive damages capped at fifteen thousand dollars and attorney fees where the denial was in bad faith.

Subsection (2) preserves a separate criminal complaint for tampering with physical evidence under § 18-8-610. board to suspend certification for at least a year where the intent was to conceal or obstruct, or to revoke it permanently where the incident caused a civilian death or serious bodily injury.