LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is being sued over its fees for public records—essentially accused of holding records for ransom and pricing the public out.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, along with the Nevada Independent and others filed the lawsuit in state court, claiming that LVMPD is "willfully violating the Nevada Public Records Act" by charging arbitrary and excessive fees.
WATCH | ACLU of Nevada files lawsuit against LVMPD over public records fines, policies
The lawsuit says, "LVMPD price gouges the public out of access to public records, allowing it to operate without transparency and accountability to the public they are meant to serve."
“This case is about government transparency," said Jennifer Peter, editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization and one of the plaintiff's in the lawsuit. "When agencies over-charge for records or charge excessive fees, it becomes hard to hold government accountable. We joined this lawsuit not only so our reporters can have reasonable access to important police records, but so that anyone among the public can get the records they’re entitled to.”
Channel 13 knows first-hand how high the bills for records can be. Last week, Metro sent us a bill for $20,719.42 for body camera video from a case that has had many in the public on edge. The ongoing case involves an alleged illegal bio lab operating in a Las Vegas home.
The lawsuit includes plenty of eye-popping charges, including a nearly $7,000 bill for body cam footage the ACLU requested. The agency says that footage would include "evidence of LVMPD's use of excessive force" against peaceful protesters at a June 11, 2025 anti-ICE protest, citing our investigation that aired in December.
When the ACLU of Nevada requested body camera footage from that protest, the lawsuit says LVMPD wanted $6,811.33 upfront before beginning to process the request. Then, the lawsuit claims, after months of the ACLU trying to narrow the request to reduce costs, LVMPD stopped responding entirely. The lawsuit claims that as of July 30, more than 13 months after the original request, LVMPD still hasn't responded.
Documents also claim that LVMPD charged different rates for the same type of records with no explanation. For body camera footage, LVMPD charged the ACLU approximately $85/hour in one invoice, then switched to $5.67/minute in a later invoice, then $5.80/minute days after that — all for the same request, according to the lawsuit.
“The government willfully passes on regular operating costs to public records requestors by charging for staff time and most entities consistently overcharge for basic items, charge different rates for different requestors at different times, and have required advance deposits to even start processing requests for records the public is entitled to," said ACLU of Nevada executive director Athar Haseebullah. "We cannot have government accountability without government transparency, and barriers to government transparency put up by government agencies continue to make government less accountable...All Nevadans deserve open and transparent government.”
Nevada law is pretty clear about what police can charge for public records. Agencies are allowed to bill for actual materials like ink, paper, CDs or flash drives—basically the physical costs of making copies. But the law specifically says they can't charge for expenses they'd have anyway, whether someone requests records or not.
That's where Metro appears to be breaking the rules, according to the lawsuit. The department openly admits its rates are based on "the actual salaries and benefits of the employees" in its Public Records Unit, including full-time staff who are paid regardless of how many records requests come in. Those salary and benefit costs exist whether any media organization or member of the public asks for body camera footage or not—which means Metro can't legally pass those expenses on to the public.
The lawsuit argues that Metro's invoices show the department "openly and routinely charges in excess of the actual cost" by billing for staff time that the agency is already required by law to provide. In other words, they're charging people for work they're supposed to do anyway as part of their basic transparency obligations under Nevada's Public Records Act.
In one of its letters to The Marshall Project that's referenced in the lawsuit, LVMPD claims that “[f]or large incidents that have created a public interest, voluminous records are provided without charge. For instance, we will publish body-worn camera footage on our YouTube channel for events like mass shootings or protests.” However, the lawsuit says, "LVMPD’s steep charges for ACLU of Nevada’s protest related request, and LVMPD’s failure to post any footage from the protests on June 11, 2025, call this claim of transparency into question in circumstances where it does not serve LVMPD’s own interest."
The lawsuit seeks to remedy what it calls deliberate violations of state law by asking the district court to force LVMPD to complete the outstanding records requests and halt excessive billing practices moving forward. The legal challenge also requests that Metro pay the petitioners' legal costs and face civil penalties under Nevada's public records statutes — fines ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 based on how many violations occurred.
You can read the full filing here:
ACLU of Nevada files lawsuit against Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department by yolanda.cruz
